Head of the Strategic Communications Center of the Southern Defense Forces Dmytro Pletenchuk has reported that a large Russian anti-submarine ship, the Admiral Levchenko, caught fire in the Barents Sea within the Arctic Ocean.
According to Pletenchuk, the fire is likely caused by the Russians' inability to service the ship’s engines, which were made in Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
“This is what happens when a ‘superpower’ receives sanctions from Ukraine and cannot independently service engines produced in Mykolaiv. 10 years was not enough to solve this problem,” commented Pletenchuk.
The ship reportedly has hundreds of crew members on board. There are no details yet on the cause of the fire or the extent of the damage.
The Admiral Levchenko ship is equipped with strike weapons, including Rastrub missile-torpedoes, capable of engaging both underwater and surface targets. The ship was commissioned by the Russian Federation in 1988 and is stationed in Severomorsk on the Barents Sea’s eastern shore.
On May 30, The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine successfully striked the ship-boat depot of Russia, destroying two Russian patrol boats with the help of Ukrainian Magura V5 marine attack drones in temporarily occupied Crimea.
