'Revenge is inevitable' — Ukraine sinks Russian border guard ship involved in 2018 Kerch Strait attack
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The Ukrainian Navy said on July 14 it hit and sank a Russian border guard patrol ship off the coast near the city of Novorossiysk in Russia's Krasnodar Krai, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the front line.
The vessel — the Izumrud — was hit by a Sargan-3000 sea drone and the strike killed and wounded members of its crew, the Ukrainian Navy said, without disclosing further details.
It added that the Izumrud participated in Russia's attack on three Ukrainian naval vessels in the Kerch Strait on Nov. 25, 2018, in what at the time was one of the most significant clashes of the war between the two sides before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
During the incident, Russian forces opened fire on and seized two Ukrainian gunboats and a tugboat as they attempted to transit the Kerch Strait from Odesa to Mariupol. Twenty-four Ukrainian sailors were captured and later released in a prisoner exchange in 2019.
"Revenge is inevitable. To be continued," the Ukrainian Navy said in a post on social media.
Commissioned in 2014, the Izumrud was a second-rank border guard patrol ship equipped with a helicopter landing pad, the Ukrainian Navy said.
It was approximately 62.5 meters (205 feet) long, displaced between 630 and 750 metric tons, and had a top speed of 27 knots, it added.
