A Landing Ship Tank (LST) which is known to be of the Ropucha class belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was announced on 4 August under attack from the Ukrainian Kamikaze – Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) marine drone. The Project 775/Ropucha Olenegorskiy Gornyak (SDK-91) large landing craft was attacked in the hull position.
A Twitter user nicknamed “Capt_Navy”, who is a retired Russian Navy officer and lives in Sevastopol was the first to share the video of the LST Ropucha class being towed by a tug. The damage claimed to the port side of the hull appeared to be significant, causing the ship to roll more than 40-50 degrees to port. Even so, there was no smoke on board to indicate an explosion.
Ukraine started using kamikaze USVs in autumn 2022 during the attack on the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol. The first attack that took place on 29 October 2022 took the Russian Black Sea Fleet by surprise. An Admiral Grigorovich class frigate and minesweeper were reportedly hit by a Ukrainian USV during the attack.
After the first attack, Ukraine carried out several more attacks on the Sevastopol Naval Base, the Kerch Bridge, and several Russian military installations in the Black Sea.
“Ropucha” is the designation for a type of landing craft used by the Russian Navy. The name “Ropucha” means “frog” in Russian. These ships belong to the LST (Landing Ship Tank) class or tank landing transport ships. The main task of the Ropucha ships is to transport troops, equipment and military vehicles, including tanks, to land during amphibious operations.
Video likely showing the moment the naval drone damaged the LST in Novorossiysk.https://t.co/FCRkVlsfZH https://t.co/ihfG6JJz2t pic.twitter.com/Kn3q24NuKV
— Benjamin Pittet (@COUPSURE) August 4, 2023
Ropucha is divided into Ropucha I and Ropucha II, which differ in design and capabilities. Ropucha I is 112-120 meters long and 15 meters wide, while its dead weight or full weight ranges from 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes. The capacity that can be transported is 10 Main Battle Tanks (MBT) or 340 marines.
Ropucha I class with 98 crew, powered by two diesel engines. The maximum speed of this LST is 18 knots and can explore up to 11,300 km at an economical speed of 15 knots. The Black Sea Fleet LSTs of a type also operated by Ukraine, are armed with 2 × 57 mm AK-257 guns, 2 × 30 122 mm A-215 Grad-M rocket launchers and 4 Strela 2 (SA-N-5) anti-aircraft missile launchers.