By Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk

 (Reuters) – Ukraine destroyed a Russian landing warship off the coast of occupied Crimea in an operation with naval drones that breached the vessel’s port side on Wednesday and caused it to sink, Kyiv’s military spy agency and armed forces said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which said earlier that it had destroyed six drones in the Black Sea. The Kremlin declined to comment.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces, together with the Defence Ministry’s intelligence unit, destroyed the Tsezar Kunikov large landing ship. It was in Ukraine’s territorial waters near Alupka at the time of the hit,” the military said on Telegram messenger.
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The Black Sea resort town of Alupka lies not far from Yalta on the southern edge of Crimea, which Russian forces seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

“Today, more security in the Black Sea and more motivation for our people were added. This is important. And step by step, we will clear the Black Sea of Russian terrorist objects,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
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Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said the warship appeared to have been loaded when it sank and that, before the attack, it had spent some 10 days at a loading site used by the Russian military.

It published grainy footage on Telegram purporting to show several naval drones approaching a large vessel at night and at least one large explosion.
Reuters was able to verify the ship in the video as the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Tsezar Kunikov based on its main mast, antenna, bridge and deck. The location and date the footage was filmed could not be independently verified.