Humiliated Putin ‘covering up losses from warship sinking’ as hacked docs reveal 74 crew killed in Storm Shadow strike

10 months ago 5

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PUTIN has been humiliated after it was revealed he lost 74 sailors when Ukraine blitzed warship Novocherkassk in a Storm Shadow missile strike, according to a hacked document.

The embarrassing death toll is far higher than Russia’s claim of one dead, a civilian port worker, and six wounded.

74 Russian Sailors were killed and 27 wounded in a Storm Shadow missile strike[/caption]

The explosion hit the Novocherkassk landing ship and Russia previously claimed the death count was far lower than what a hacked document has revealed[/caption]

Another 27 were wounded in the attack on Feodosia port in annexed Crimea, according to the source.

Moscow evidently does not dare tell its people about the scale of the deaths and injuries, and is seeking to cover-up the losses.

It amounts to Putin’s largest naval loss in a single incident during the 22-month war.

The figure of 101 dead or wounded was revealed in a document unearthed by Ukrainian hacker group Cyber Resistance.

It indicated Putin’s naval commander-in-chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov had approached the head of Novocherkassk city administration, Yuri Lysenko, to call for a rare two days of official mourning.

The vessel was named after Novocherkassk, in Russia’s Rostov region.

It was likely full of munitions when it was hit by a British-supplied Storm Shadow missile, causing a dramatic explosion on December 26.

It is also known that two pro-Putin media outlets in annexed Crimea – Sevastopol News portal and NTS media outlet – carried reports on the toll – before withdrawing them, almost certainly based on censorship by the FSB counterintelligence service.

The reports remain in the internet cache.

In the event, no period of mourning has been announced.

The Ukrainians believe Yevmenov was overruled by the Kremlin in attempting to publicly disclose via Russian state TV and other media the losses, and arrange mourning for the dead sailors along with help for their families.

Putin has repeatedly refused to publish details of losses in a succession of naval disasters.

The most obvious was the loss of the Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva in April 2022.

The dictator has still not given an accurate toll for the losses on the sunken Moskva.

If the Novocherkassk toll is accurate, it may explain Putin’s reported fury in the wake of the attack, and his Friday “revenge” missile and kamikaze drone onslaught on Ukraine.

At least 30 died and 160 were wounded.

“Russia misled when it claimed Putin’s warship Novocherkassk was merely “damaged.”

“It has clearly been completely destroyed,” said British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps .

“It’s crucial that in 2024, the civilised world continues to back Ukraine in this epoch-defining battle currently playing out in Europe.”

It comes as Britain are set to had over 200 air defence missiles to Ukraine after Putin’s sickening “revenge” barrage killed 28 civilians.

The British ministry of defence confirmed the massive shipment Yesterday.

The announcement came as Russia unleashed a relentless onslaught of missiles on Ukraine which killed 28 people, according to the Ukrainian government and reported by the BBC.

In what is believed to be the biggest aerial attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the bloody war, a total of 158 missiles and countless drone strikes hit homes, a maternity hospital, and a shopping mall.

Putin’s attempt to cover up his losses follows a series of embarrassing blunders made by Russian troops throughout the war.

In early December Russia lost a dozen elite marines when they cooked food on an open fire and triggered an explosion from nearby live ammunition.

And a Major Russian news outlets boasted a precision Lancet drone attack on a Ukrainian warplane on the ground – only to find that they had destroyed a worthless decoy.