Press Report Details Battle in the Black Sea

One of the members of the crew of a ship in the Black Sea Fleet, upon his return to Sevastopol is interviewed by a reporter regarding the battle with Georgian cutters off of Abkhazia on 10 August. This is currently leading the kpunews in the Ukraine. The story suggests he is being interviewed by a kpunews reporter.

"We took up station guarding the opposed landing on the Abkhaz shore when all of a sudden four high speed targets were detected. We sent out an IFF signal and the targets didn't react. Receiving a command from the flagship, we got into formation and right at that moment the unidentified targets opened fire on the ship formation and flagship. The cruiser was damaged and a small fire broke out aboard. Then, fearing for seaworthyness, the flagship withdrew from the firing area." - the sailor said.

"Right then the small missile boats clearly fired," the participant continued. "Taking up position, our MRK launched a "Malakhit" (SS-N-9) anti-surface missile, which literally cut the lead ship, the "Tbilisi" to ribbons. After that, fire was shifted to the rest of the Georgian ships. Another ship was damaged, we couldn't finish it off, allowing it to leave the scene under its own power.

So the Moskva was apparently damaged in the attack and disengaged. She is certainly capable of destroying big ships, but the battle appears to highlight a weakness against small ships. The battle also tends to add credibility to what many have said, it is best to fight small ships at sea with small ships at sea.

The sailor goes on to say it took a minute and a half for the Georgian ship to sink in 300 meters of water. The article finishes with a note about the "Tbilisi" being previously sold to Georgia as the former Ukraine ship "Konotop".

Story about this story is also running in the Russian press here.