Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday morning announced the destruction of a Class 1241 missile corvette near Odessa. But the Ukrainian Navy claims that they do not have such a ship.

In the afternoon of May 8, the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, General Igor Konashenkov, at a daily briefing announced the destruction of the Ukrainian ship.

“In the area of Odessa, the corvette of the Ukrainian Navy of project 1241 was destroyed,” he said .

But, as the Ukrainian Navy emphasizes, the Ukrainian Navy does not have such a ship at all, at least for the last 8 years.

“Please look at the naval fleet. We do not have such a corvette at all. I can only say that the Russian Federation is constantly lying,” a source in the Navy told BBC News Ukraine. The department did not want to officially refute the information of the enemy, noting that such “fake statements” are an element of the information and psychological struggle of the Russian Federation.

According to open data, at the beginning of the war the Navy consisted of small armored artillery boats (project 58155), American Island boats, landing ships “Yuri Olefirenko” and “Svatovo”, minesweeper, rescue, diving boats, training boats and the flagship of the fleet is the frigate “Hetman Sagaidachny” (project 11351).

The latter was flooded at the beginning of the war in the docks of Mykolayiv by order of the Ukrainian command.

Earlier in Ukraine there were indeed 7 ships of the project 1241. But four of them (“Dnieper”, “Khmelnitsky”, “Grigory Gnatenko” and “Poltava”) Russia captured in March 2014 during the annexation of Crimea.

Of the three corvettes left in the Ukrainian military, two were written off.

The only one left is not the Navy, but the Marine Guard of the State Border Guard Service.

This is the flagship “Grigory Kuropyatnikov” (project 1241.2). At the beginning of the invasion on February 26, the State Border Guard Service announced an attack on him.

“That night (from 25 to 26 February, – Ed.) On the approach to the Black Sea was shot down an enemy drone that attacked the ship of the Marine Guard of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine” Grigory Kuropyatnikov “. Currently the ship continues to serve in the Black Sea,” – the agency said then.

Currently, the Border Guard Service does not confirm a repeat attack on the flagship of its fleet.

“We have all the rules. I think that these statements (Russian Defense Ministry – Ed. ) Are generally far-fetched,” – said the BBC News Ukraine interlocutor in the Border Service.

The Corvettes of Project 1241 (code “Lightning”) are multi-purpose coastal ships of various modifications, built in the 1970s and 1980s in the USSR.

As for the ship “Grigory Kuropyatnikov”, it was built in Russian Yaroslavl and launched in 1984. In 1992 he became a member of the Ukrainian Marine Guard.

It is named after the Soviet soldier Grigory Kuropyatnikov, who on March 25, 1943, repulsed an attack by Nazi planes on his ship with machine gun fire. For this he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

During the independence of Ukraine, the corvette “Grigory Kuropyatnikov” was actively used to protect the Black Sea coast, in military exercises and to stop the poaching of foreign vessels.

This ship has on board artillery, missile and torpedo weapons and electronic warfare. The corvette crew is 44 people.

Destruction of Russian ships in the Black Sea

In the afternoon of May 6, the media began to report that a ship was burning in the sea near Odessa.

Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, stated that the Ukrainian military had shot down the Russian frigate Admiral Makarov (Project 11356R) with Neptune missiles.

However, the Ukrainian authorities did not confirm this information. In particular, adviser to the president’s office Alexei Arestovich called the information about the defeat of the Russian ship fake.

At the same time, on May 7, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that the Ukrainian military had destroyed three Russian boats off Snake Island in the Black Sea. The “Serna” landing craft and 2 “Raptor” assault boats were shot down, and another was damaged.

Already on May 8, the operational command “South” of the Armed Forces announced a new successful attack on the Russians in the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces did not disseminate any reports of damage to Ukrainian navy ships.

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