The video of the fire on the Boikiy corvette of the project 20380 of the Baltic Fleet of the russian federation, which was hit by the Forces of unmanned systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the dry dock of the Kronstadt Marine Plant on June 3 of this year, confirms the wildest expectations – this warship received critical damage, which is equivalent to the destruction of the ship.
By this time, high-quality satellite images have been released, which have already allowed us to talk about this, but it is the video from the scene that finally removes all doubts.
Read more: Ukrainian Drones Strike russian Boykiy Corvette in the Baltic Fleet Base (Video)
The video was shot almost immediately after the impact, before the hydrants were deployed and the fire was extinguished. That is, the footage recorded the initial damage to the ship, which only intensified later.
The very first frame from the scene shows that the ship's tower-mast structure collapsed into the middle of the hull. It houses all the key radio-electronic systems of the corvette: Furke-2 air search radar, Monument-A targeting radar, MR-231-2 navigation radar, as well as TK-25 integrated electronic warfare suite.
As a result of the collapse of this structure, the panel covering the launchers of the Kh-35 anti-ship missiles of the Uran missile system was torn off.
A fire is raging in the interior behind the wheelhouse. That is where the combat control posts for the corvet's weapons and electronic systems, as well as the internal units of these systems, are located.
Under the corvet’s bridge, where flames are also visible, are the crew cabins. In this case, part of the hull was torn off by an explosion that occurred inside the hull. This is indicated by a piece of the hull that bent outwards.
You can also see flames in the open side hatch in the video. This is the installation location of the Paket-NK small-sized anti-torpedo system, in fact 324-mm torpedo tubes.
It is very important that the Paket-NK system is located next to the engine room. That is, with a huge degree of probability, the fire on the Boikiy corvette also spread to the main diesel power plant.
All these damages were recorded on the video even before the fire was extinguished, involving 4-5 hydrants, from which the burning ship inside was flooded with water.
At the same time, prolonged high temperature during a fire leads to a loss of strength of metal structures, and water leads to corrosion. That is why, taking into account all these circumstances, it can be argued that the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, using the FP-1 long-range drone, transferred the Boikiy corvette of the russia’s Baltic Fleet to the category of destroyed.
It should be noted that the declared cost of the FP-1 is $ 55 000. It is also known that the cost of the Steregushchy-class (Project 20380) corvette as of 2021 was about $ 350-400 mln. It is also interesting that this strike was delivered from a distance of over 900 km, which may indicate a significant increase in the capabilities of the Ukrainian Defense Forces to deliver long-range strikes and destroy important objects on the territory of russia
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Read more: Satellite Imagery Suggests russian Boykiy Corvette Was Effectively Destroyed After Ukrainian Drone Attack in Kronstadt
