This Wednesday, Russia announced the destruction of the Ukrainian amphibious assault ship Yuriy Olefirenko off the coast of Odessa, which Moscow said was the “last warship” of the Ukrainian Navy that was still on alert.
“On May 29 (Monday), as a result of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ high-precision weapon attacking the warship parking zone in the port of Odessa, the last warship of the Ukrainian Navy, Yuriy Olefirenko, was destroyed,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The landing ship, made in Poland in the 1970s, was originally called Kirovograd.
In 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ship passed to the Ukrainian Navy after being transferred to the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy.
During the 2016 Russian invasion, which led to the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, in southern Ukraine, the Yuriy Olefirenko was captured by Russian forces and returned to the Ukrainian Navy the same year.
Later, the ship was towed to Odessa.
Two years later, he was renamed Yuriy Olefirenko in honor of a Ukrainian Navy captain who died during clashes with Russian troops in the east of the country.