Ukraine just put a naval drone through the hull of a Russian patrol ship while it sat docked in a resort town on the Black Sea. The vessel, a Rubin-class patrol boat called the Izumrud, went down near Gelendzhik, a coastal city in Russia’s Krasnodar region that happens to sit uncomfortably close to a luxury compound widely reported to be associated with Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian Navy confirmed the strike, which used at least one domestically produced Sargan-3000 sea drone. Crew casualties, including deaths and injuries, were reported by Ukrainian sources. Russia has not officially confirmed the sinking.
What happened in Gelendzhik
The Izumrud was commissioned in 2014 and built by the Almaz Shipbuilding Company. It served as a patrol vessel in the Black Sea. The ship was docked when the Sargan-3000 reached it, meaning this wasn’t an open-water ambush. It was a strike on a vessel sitting in what Russia presumably considered safe harbor.
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