Ukraine’s special forces stated that the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, and 33 other Russian officers were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on the fleet’s headquarters in the Crimean port of Sevastopol last week.
The attack on the headquarters reportedly was struck with at least two UK-provided Storm Shadow long-range missiles.
“If true it would likely be the highest ranking naval officer killed in combat since WWII,” the chief international security analyst for NBC News, retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander, posted on X.
Before Russian forces suffered 62 casualties in the Sept. 13 strike against the Minsk landing craft docked in the Sevastopol shipyard.
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russia’s naval facilities in the occupied Crimea in recent weeks while the brunt of its summer counteroffensive makes slow gains in the east and south of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War reported. It followed Friday’s attack with another barrage on Saturday.
