Ukraine Claims to Have Retaken Oil and Gas Platforms within the Black Sea

Ukraine stated on Monday that it had taken management of a number of oil and gasoline platforms within the Black Sea, after a sequence of clashes with Russian aerial and maritime forces within the waters between Odesa and the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

The Ukrainian army intelligence company launched a 13-minute video together with fight footage, drone movies and interviews with unidentified particular forces troopers describing what they stated was “a unique operation to establish control” over offshore rigs often called the Boyko Towers that Russia seized in 2015.

Ukraine’s declare couldn’t be independently verified, and the Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t instantly remark.

Like close by Snake Island, a speck of land south of Odesa, the offshore platforms play a task in Russia’s means to undertaking energy within the Black Sea, the place the Kremlin has strangled the Ukrainian financial system and wreaked havoc with world meals provides with a de facto naval blockade of Ukrainian ports.

The Russians have used the drilling platforms as ahead deployment bases and helicopter touchdown websites — basically floating bases. Military analysts and the British army intelligence company say Russia has put in radar installations and long-range missile methods used to assault Ukraine and defend towards strikes on Russian installations in Crimea.

Ukraine stepped up its marketing campaign to drive the Russians from the platforms this summer time, based on each Russian and Ukrainian accounts.

In a skirmish final month, Russia stated that certainly one of its fighter jets destroyed a high-speed army boat carrying Ukrainian troops. Ukraine’s army intelligence provided a distinct model of occasions, saying the Russian fighter jet had come underneath hearth and was compelled to retreat.

In the video launched on Monday, Ukrainian forces confirmed what they stated have been “trophies” from the operation, together with a stockpile of helicopter munitions and a radar system that they stated can monitor the motion of ships. And they claimed they’d moved nearer to attaining their goal of reclaiming Crimea.

Although Ukraine was capable of sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet early within the warfare, the Russian Navy has an necessary base in Crimea and has been a forceful presence in the course of the battle.

After Russia pulled out of a deal that allowed Ukraine to soundly ship its acquire by the Black Sea, Moscow threatened to deal with civilian ships shifting to and from Ukrainian ports as probably hostile. Russia additionally started extra aggressively focusing on infrastructure at Ukraine’s ports, each on the Black Sea and the Danube River.

On Monday, a newly declassified British intelligence report steered that Russian missiles in an assault final month have been geared toward a civilian cargo ship that was docked at a Black Sea port within the Odesa area.

The ship, which sails underneath the Liberian flag, was unhurt within the Aug. 24 assault after the missiles have been shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the report stated.

Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.