Ukrainian special forces say Black Sea Fleet commander killed in Sevastopol attack

The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet lost his life in the Ukrainian missile attack on Russia’s naval headquarters in Sevastopol on Friday, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) claimed on Monday.

The SSO said that a total of 34 officers were killed and a further 105 were wounded in the attack. While it did not name the commander, the current commander of the Black Sea Fleet is Admiral Viktor Sokolov.

The Russian Defence Ministry has yet to comment on the matter, and has to date only said that one serviceman remained unaccounted for in Friday’s attack.

Ukraine launched multiple cruise missiles at the Russian naval headquarters in the port of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea on Friday, five of which the Russian military said it had shot down.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a military officer in the city later told Novaya-Europe that “dozens of servicemen” were likely to have been injured.

In the same report, the SSO also claimed that another missile strike that hit the Minsk, a Russian naval landing ship, on 13 September killed 62 servicemen.