Ukraine is claiming that it may have destroyed Vladimir Putin’s special ‘parade boat’ which he uses to inspect his naval fleets.
Dramatic footage shows a white-coloured Raptor-class patrol vessel being obliterated by a laser-guided bomb dropped from a Ukraine-operated Bayraktar TB2 drone near Snake Island in the Black Sea.
The Russian leader has used such a boat with the designation 001 for fleet inspections in Sevastopol and St Petersburg.
He also uses the patrol boat to deliver speeches and conduct military parades.
The suspected sinking of the Russian leader’s patrol boat comes as two other 55-ft-long Raptors were hit in recent days in similar attacks.
Ukraine’s armed forces also destroyed a Serna class landing craft with a Tor surface-to-air missile system onboard suspected of targeting Snake Island, some 80 miles south of Odesa.
Ukraine Now Telegram channel reported: ‘We received information that one of the destroyed boats of the Raptor type in the Snake Island area was Putin’s parade boat.’
The vessel is ‘distinguished by the white colour of its hull’, and the successful strike took place on Sunday, May 8.
The Kremlin leader’s vessel is a ‘specially equipped parade boat with tail number 001,’ said the report.
‘On board, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has hosted military parades in St. Petersburg and Sevastopol several times.’
Another Ukrainian report said: ‘Among its sister ships, the vessel stands out by the white colour of its hull.
‘This is a specially equipped parade boat with tail number 001.
‘The Kremlin’s dwarf conducted military parades in St Petersburg and Sevastopol several times on the boat.
‘If the assumptions are correct, then the reaction of the bunker grandfather to such news can only be imagined.’
Raptors are typically supplied in camouflage rather than white – a second clip shows a separate Ukrainian strike which targeted a camouflaged Raptor.
Putin is believed to have started the war in Ukraine with a total of eight Raptor class vessels, but up to five of them have now been destroyed in Ukrainian strikes.
Ukraine also claims to have destroyed multiple troop landing vehicles and outposts on the Russian-occupied Snake Island.
Footage released on Saturday showed a pair of Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 aircraft flying low over the island and bombing its main complex, which was seized by Russian forces earlier this year.
On the same day, a second strike, this time conducted by a Ukraine-operated Bayraktar TB2 drone, destroyed a landing craft which appeared to contain several Russian troops thought to be supplying the island with anti-aircraft missile systems.
Footage appeared to show the destruction of a large Serna-type landing craft in an air strike.
‘Enemy units remaining on Snake Island remain without air cover and will be destroyed and burned out like cockroaches or locusts,’ said Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko.
The 100 acre outpost has proved to be a valuable strategic position, sitting some 80 miles off Ukraine’s southern coastline in the Black Sea.
Russia seized the island early in the war and has largely managed to maintain control of it, but its forces there have been subject to bombing raids ever since.
Russia also lost its flagship vessel, the Moskva, in the seas close to Snake Island following a Ukrainian missile strike.
Almost one month later, Moscow has not disclosed the true death toll from the warship, which was targeted by Ukrainian Neptune missiles.
In February, Ukrainian border guard Roman Hrybov on Snake Island famously radioed ‘Russian warship, go f*** yourself’ to Russian officers aboard the Moskva.
Hrybov and his crew were thought dead after the Moskva bombarded the island with artillery fire, but they miraculously survived and were given awards upon being returned to Ukrainian soil in a prisoner transfer last month.