Russiaʼs Defense Ministry on Sunday announced the destruction of a missile corvette near Odesa. But the Ukrainian Navy claims that they do not have such a ship.
This was reported by BBC Ukraine.
The Russian military said it "destroyed the corvette Soviet designation project 1241 (NATO: Tarantul-class) of the Ukrainian Navy." At the same time, the Ukrainian Navy said that they have not had such a ship at all, at least for the last 8 years.
The publication notes that previously there were indeed 7 ships of Project 1241 in Ukraine. But four of them ("Prydniprovya", "Khmelnytskyi", "Hryhoriy Hnatenko" and "Poltava") were seized by Russia in March 2014 during the annexation of Crimea. Of the three corvettes left in the Ukrainian military, two were decommissioned.
The only one left is not the Navy, but the Marine Guard of the State Border Guard Service. This is the flagship "Hrihoriy Kuropyatnikov". At the beginning of the invasion on February 26, the State Border Guard Service announced an attack on him.
The State Border Guard Service did not confirm the attack on the flagship of its fleet. "All is fine here. I think that these statements [ by the Russian Ministry of Defense] are generally far-fetched,” a source in the SBGS told the publication.