Kyiv intelligence: Drone attacks on Russian ships will continue

After a Ukrainian naval drone struck a Russian ship in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk on Friday, a spokesman for Kyiv's intelligence has threatened Moscow with similar attacks.

The strike on the landing ship Olenegorski Gornyak (Olenegorsk Miner) was a great loss for the Russian fleet, HUR military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian state TV's Russian-language foreign channel Freedom.

"For Ukraine, this is good and just news," he said on Friday. "This will continue."

Yusov stressed that these landing ships were a strategic risk for Ukraine.

He added that the incident represented a "tragedy" for Russian propaganda. The Russian Defence Ministry had earlier claimed that the attack had been repelled, but videos show the drone hitting the ship and images show it tipped on its side.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the presidential office in Kyiv, said on Friday that Ukrainian naval drones would completely change "the rules of the game." The Russian naval presence in the Black Sea "will be put to an end," he said. In the future, he added, Ukraine would ensure "freedom and security in the Black Sea for world trade."