A "binge-drinking" Russian Navy commander has been blamed for an attack on the city of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai, which hosts a naval base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
On Wednesday morning, Novorossiysk Mayor Andrey Kravchenko announced an "attack of unmanned boats" on the city where Russia relocated many of its warships from annexed Crimea due to relentless Ukrainian attacks. Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email.
Ukraine has ramped up its attacks on the Russian Navy using its Magura V5 maritime drones as Kyiv pushes to reverse Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Hours after the attack, a Russian naval military blogger with the username "Battle Sailor" took to Telegram to talk about the incident.
"Russian naval blogger talks about the 2 July surface drone attack on Novorossiysk, says a certain Russian officer is guilty of binge drinking which leads to such results," X, formerly Twitter, user Dmitri, from War Translated, an independent project that translates materials about the war, said on Thursday, sharing the military blogger's post.
"Finally online. Hello everyone. Here's what I want to say about yesterday's [naval drone] attack on the Novorossiysk base," Battle Sailor said, praising those who defended the Black Sea Fleet base as "handsome men and the pride of the Russian fleet!"
The military blogger continued by criticizing those "whose responsibilities include organizing the early detention of naval drones and their destruction, or least on the border of the territorial waters."
"Once again you let the enemy kamikaze into the bay, facing the entire hero city to jump up half the night and hide children away from the windows."
The channel said there is "one high-ranking official who periodically goes on a drinking binge throughout the war and then lays under IVs [intravenous drips]."
"Almost everyone knows about him. If you get drunk again, your own officers will disgrace you right in your office, and I will help them spread it," the military blogger wrote. "I can no longer tolerate this obscene attitude towards naval service."
The channel anticipated a future attack by Ukrainian naval drones on the city.
"P.S. the enemy has conducted reconnaissance in force, we should probably expect a more massive attack," the post concluded.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that two naval drones heading toward Novorossiysk were destroyed in the Black Sea. The local Telegram channel Crimean Wind questioned Moscow's version of events, publishing satellite imagery that purportedly shows fires that broke out at a Novorossiysk port.
Russia relocated much of its fleet from Crimea to Novorossiysk and to its naval port in Feodosia further east on the annexed peninsula in October 2023, satellite images showed.
Ukraine has so far disabled a third of Russian President Vladimir Putin's prized Black Sea Fleet, according to Dmytro Pletenchuk, former Ukrainian Navy spokesperson.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
