Russia's Serpukhov small missile ship was significantly damaged by a fire on Sunday in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, according to an anonymous Ukrainian security source cited by RBC Ukraine on Monday.
A Kyiv Post report attributed the incident to a Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) operation, citing an unnamed security services source. "Repairs will take a long time," the source said.
The HUR later claimed responsibility for the fire, posting a video to its Telegram channel purporting to show the setting of a fire inside the Serpukhov and claiming that the vessel had been "disabled." The post added: "Due to the fire inside the rocket ship, its means of communication and automation were completely destroyed."
Newsweek has not been able to corroborate the report independently and has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries by email to request comment.
The Buyan-M class corvette incorporates stealth technology and has a vertical launching system for either Kalibr or Oniks anti-ship cruise missiles, both munitions that have been used in Moscow's nationwide bombardment of Ukraine. The Buyan-M class is designed to operate in relatively shallow coastal regions or inland waterways.
The Serpukhov launched Kalibr missile strikes against Islamist militants in Syria from the Mediterranean Sea in 2016, before being deployed to the Baltic Sea area later that year.
In September 2023 the Russian state media reported that the Serpukhov performed a successful launch of a cruise Kalibr missile in the White Sea, successfully hitting a "coastal target."
The Baltic Sea is emerging as a key area of Russian-NATO competition in a new era of tension between the traditional rivals. The Kaliningrad exclave is a key Russian outpost in the Baltic Sea, and hosts significant conventional military strength as well as electronic warfare equipment and possibly nuclear weapons.
Kaliningrad is expected to be an important staging point for any future hypothetical Russian aggression against NATO nations in northeastern and northern Europe, particularly against the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
In such an event, Russian and Belarusian forces are expected to try to seize the Suwalki Gap, a 60-mile corridor stretched along the Lithuanian-Polish frontier between Belarus and Kaliningrad. This would cut off land access between the three Baltic states and the rest of NATO.
The Western alliance appears to have the strategic edge in the Baltic Sea, thanks to the addition of Sweden and Finland to the alliance. Both joined following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Allied officials have previously told Newsweek that the body of water can now be considered a "NATO Lake."
In March, Russian and Ukrainian media reported that a fishing vessel, Kapitan Lobanov, sank near the city of Pionersky in the same area of the Baltic Sea.
Update 4/8/24, 10:45 a.m. EDT: This article was updated with more information and context.
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