Everyone has seen the news about the strike on the Kalibr carrier Admiral Grigorovich, which turned out to be the Makarov, and the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk, where the Makarov frigate took a hit. Meanwhile, the news about the air and sea operation by our Naval Forces and Unmanned Systems Forces on the Syvash drilling rig flew by very quietly. However, there are many details there that reveal the scale of the operation.
The Sivash, or "Rotten Sea," is a massive, shallow network of salt lagoons and inlets located along the northeastern coast of the Crimean Peninsula and southern mainland Ukraine.
The Syvash drilling rig was used by the Russians to monitor the sea and air situation.
It serves as a buffer zone to track our assets on the way to occupied Crimea. The Russians had optical and radar monitoring equipment there.
Security detail consisted of elite units; published videos show them firing at our unmanned surface vessels (USVs). They also operated the available electronic warfare and air defense systems. In short, it was a solid reconnaissance outpost with communication, intelligence, and countermeasure capabilities.
The scale involves a large and important target, plus a significant number of our assets deployed: Ukrainian USVs, anti-ship missiles, long-range drones, and objective control drones.
Now for the assets:
The Unmanned Systems Forces, operating as part of the 413th Reid Regiment, worked with FPV drones.
The USVs turned out not to be Maguras (Ukrainian naval drone — ed.), but Sargan 3000s. In the final frames, it is actually visible that it is not a kamikaze boat, but a floating turret with a machine gun. The enemy was suppressed by small arms fire — I can understand the shock of the Russian specialists when a machine gun fires from the sea, a drone flies from the sky, and several cruise missiles approach.
The missiles are a very interesting detail in the video! The rectangular silhouette of a transport and launch container (TLC) is clearly visible, and as everyone knows, our Neptune anti-ship missile has cylindrical TLCs. This means it is either a new Neptune with a rectangular TLC, or the Swedish RBS-15 anti-ship missile with a 200 kg warhead and a range of 200 km. And perhaps this is the first its launch against the Russians.
I am really looking forward to the details from the Naval Forces.
Therefore, the video of the operation on the Sivash rig excites me much more than another strike on a Kalibr carrier or the Sheskharis terminal.
Yes, this is cool and already systematic, not just a one-off strike on the occupiers, but the Ukrainian Navy demonstrated a truly unique operation with unique means of destruction.