Ukraine Claims to Have Damaged a Russian Minesweeper in the Baltic Sea

Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, claims that it has sabotaged a Russian minesweeper in the Baltic Sea - hundreds of miles from Ukrainian territory. It is the second Russian Navy vessel that the agency claims to have damaged using covert methods this year.

According to the GUR, the Baltic Fleet minesweeper Aleksandr Obukhov was disabled just before it was scheduled to go into service after a yard period. The Baltysk-based vessel suffered "severe damage" due to a tiny hole in a pipe, which allowed water to enter the engine. 

The Obukhov is the first-in-class of the modern Project 12700 Alexandrit-class minesweeper design, one of nine sister ships delivered by a yard in St. Petersburg. The model is intended for prolific production and 40 hulls are planned. These vessels are fiberglass-hulled, reducing their magnetic signature, weight and cost. 

The shipbuilder selected a Soviet-era radial engine for the Alexandrit-class, the 42-cylinder M503. This is a complex powerplant with a high power-to-weight ratio, designed for missile and torpedo boats, and it produces about 2,500 horsepower with seven banks of seven cylinders each. 

"Now the Russian minesweeper is undergoing major repairs, and this may turn out to be a serious problem - a damaged M-503 engine is a rather scarce thing. Repair of a key installation on a ship is technically difficult and expensive," suggested the GUR. 

The agency noted that the Obukhov had just come out of a yard period in St. Petersburg in July. 

The sabotage attack on the Obukhov is the second that Ukraine has claimed on a vessel of the Baltic Fleet this year. In April, the GUR asserted that a Russian defector lit a fire aboard the Buyan-M class corvette Serpukhov in the port of Kaliningrad, destroying its communications and automation systems. The damage to the Serpukhov took the warship out of action for at least six months, the GUR claimed, and the defector was smuggled out of Russia and back to Ukraine.

"This operation came as a shock to the enemy, and the FSB was furious," GUR officer Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian media at the time.