Ukraine claims Russian submarine sank following recent attack on Crimea

Officials of Ukraine's armed forces have reported that a recent attack on a port in the Russian-held region of Crimea successfully sank a Russian Navy diesel-electric submarine that had also suffered damage as a result of a missile strike last year.

Officials said in a statement that the attack on the Black sea port of Sevastopol late last week struck the submarine Rostov na Donu. The submarine reportedly sank shortly afterwards, though the Ukrainian government has provided no visual evidence of the attack and Russia's defence ministry has not issued any comment on the alleged incident.

If confirmed, the attack would be the second targeting Rostov na Donu. On September 13, 2023, a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol hit the submarine and the Russian Navy landing ship Minsk while both were undergoing maintenance in dry docks.

The earlier attack was downplayed by Moscow but was confirmed via an intelligence update published shortly afterwards by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD).

The MOD had said that open-source evidence indicates the landing ship has almost certainly been "functionally destroyed" while the submarine has likely suffered "catastrophic damage." The MOD added that any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and "cost hundreds of millions of dollars."