From Sevastopol To Kaliningrad: New Details About Burned 'Serpukhov' Missile Ship

Meaning of the loss of this ship for the Russian Federation.

The Russian Serpukhov missile ship caught fire in Kaliningrad region on April 7, 2024. As a result, the ship suffered severe damage.

This ship is only more than 10 years old, but during this time it was part of first the Black Sea Fleet, then the Baltic Fleet. And also participated in various military exercises.

Channel 24 reports on what is known about the Serpukhov ship and what this loss means for the Russians.

On What Happened To 'Serpukhov' Missile Ship

On April 8, 2024, sources of "Channel 24". in the Ukrainian security services reported that the day before the Serpukhov ship - a small missile ship of the 21631 "Buyan-M" project, which is the fifth ship of this series, caught fire in Kaliningrad region.

According to preliminary data, the fire occurred on the ship while it was at the Baltiysk naval base in Russia's Kaliningrad region. The causes of the fire on the Serpukhov have not yet been disclosed.

However, sources noted that the fire on the ship was a successful operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.

Later, the Defence Ministry's MID confirmed the successful operation, noting that as a result of the fire inside the missile ship, its communication and automation equipment was completely destroyed. It will take considerable time to restore the Serpukhov.

Launch Ship Characteristics

The fifth small missile ship of the 21631 Serpukhov series was started in January 2013 at the Zelenodolsk plant, and launched 2 years later. The ship was tested in the Black Sea near Novorossiysk.

After the trials, the Serpukhov joined the 41st brigade of missile boats of the Black Sea Fleet.

The characteristics of weapons and equipment declared by the Russians are often somewhat inconsistent with reality due to overestimated figures. As for the Serpukhov, the Russians stated the following characteristics:

displacement - 949 tonnes;

length - 74.1 metres;

width - 11 metres;

height - 6.57 metres;

maximum speed - 25 knots (over 46 kilometres per hour);

range - 2,500 miles at 12 knots.

The crew is 32 people.

In addition, this ship is equipped with various armaments:

Kalibr-NK or Oniks complex launcher for 8 missiles;

AK-190-01 / A-190M artillery installation of 100 millimetres calibre in the bow of the ship;

AK-630M-2 "Duet" artillery installation of 30 millimetres calibre in the aft part of the ship;

2 MTPU naval machine gun installations with KPV machine guns of 14.5 millimetre calibre;

2 "Gibka" SAM systems for 4 or 8 "Igla" or "Igla-M1" missiles on the stern and bow of the ship;

3 machine guns of 7.62 millimetre calibre;

an anti-diversion hand grenade launcher.

On What Is Known About The Serpukhov Missile Ship

The Serpukhov missile ship has a considerable record for 11 years of existence. Not for a long time it was part of the Black Sea Fleet, because in 2016, the Serpukhov joined the Mediterranean grouping of the terrorist state's naval forces. A few months later, the ship became part of the Russian Baltic Fleet and has remained there ever since.

In 2016, the "twin" of this ship, the Zeleny Dol, carried out strikes with Kalibr missiles on the Syrian city of Aleppo.

And the question arises - why is the destruction of this ship important in the Russian-Ukrainian war?

There are two points:

the war moves to the aggressor's territory, regardless of the distance to Ukraine.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet is suffering colossal losses and is losing ships one after another. It is possible that in order to restore combat capability, the Russians will want to redeploy ships from other fleets to the Black Sea. However, such cases make this impossible.

The Russians are significantly short of missiles, so they have to set up production of new ones for strikes on Ukraine. Therefore, it is not excluded that the ship could have carried missiles - Kalibrs or Onyx, which the enemy planned to transport to the Black Sea to attack Ukraine.