The Ukrainian military attacked the large landing ship "Konstantin Olshansky" with the Neptune missile system. This ship was captured by Russians in Crimea in 2014 and was intended to be used for strikes against Ukraine.
This information is reported by the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk, on FREEДOM.
"A detective story unfolded around the large landing ship 'Konstantin Olshansky'. This ship was intended to be used against Ukraine, unfortunately. Therefore, a decision was made to strike this unit with our 'Neptune'. The strike was successful. The extent of damage is being clarified, but it definitely sustained damage. It is currently not combat-ready," he said.
Summarizing, the spokesperson noted that the night of March 24 resulted in the incapacitation of four ships of our adversary ("Yamal", "Azov", "Ivan Khurs", and "Konstantin Olshansky").
"Out of 13 Russian ships, four have been destroyed, four are under repair, and 5 are in operation. The situation has not changed because out of those 4 undergoing repairs, 'Azov' and 'Yamal' were two of them. So, if this action had not been taken, they would have had 6 units in operation, but now they have 5," he added.
As Pletenchuk reminded, the "Konstantin Olshansky" is a Ukrainian landing ship, which was captured by Russian forces 10 years ago, in 2014, during the annexation of Crimea.
"For nine years, it stood in Sevastopol Bay, being dismantled for spare parts, simply being looted. And in the tenth year of the war, they realized that they were running out of large landing ships of this project, No. 775, and a decision was made to restore it. It underwent restoration work over the course of a year," he said.
However, as the spokesperson added, the purpose of these works was to create a falsification in order to report to the Moscow leadership that they had restored one of their supposed "own" landing ships.
"It could have been either the 'Minsk' or the 'Olenegorsky Gornyak,' because the nature of the damage there is such that their restoration is still a big question. And accordingly, there was such an idea - to pass off our ship as one of them," clarified Pletenchuk.
