Ukraine announced Monday that it has recovered an oil and gas platform in the Black Sea controlled by Russia since 2015, amid Kiev’s counteroffensive and at a time of high tension in the waters close to Ukrainian ports.
“Ukraine regains control of ‘Vishki Boika’,” the military intelligence service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said in a press release released today.
The “unique operation” that made it possible to recover the platform, the date of which has not yet been announced, was the result of “battles between Ukrainian special forces on board boats and a Russian Su-30 fighter plane,” the Ukrainian said ministry. that “the Russian plane was hit and had to withdraw.”
Ukrainian units “managed to seize valuable trophies: a cache of ammunition for helicopters (…) and also the ‘Neva’ radar, which allows monitoring the movements of ships in the Black Sea” he shifted.
In a ten-minute video released by Ukrainian military intelligence, elite units are seen approaching the oil and gas platform aboard small, fast ships, before entering the site and waving the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag.
According to the same source, “Russia had occupied (the platform complex) since 2015 and, with the beginning of the invasion, began to use it for military purposes, namely as a place to land helicopters and deploy radar equipment.”
In June 2022, Moscow accused Kiev of firing at this complex of offshore oil rigs, off the coast of Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Local Russian occupation authorities subsequently reported three wounded and seven missing.
Attacks between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the Black Sea have increased since mid-July, when Russia canceled an agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain exports despite the war.
Source: DN
