Century-old warship 'Kommuna' damaged in Ukrainian missile strike
Ukrainians attacked the port in Sevastopol, where the rescue ship "Kommuna", launched in 1913, was said to have been damaged. We introduce the spherical attack on the oldest active warship in the world.
On the night of 19th to 20th April 2024, Ukrainians attacked the Russian port in Sevastopol using cruise missiles. The rescue ship "Kommuna", which is the oldest still in service warship in the world, was reported to have been damaged.
As reported by journalist Łukasz Michalik from Virtual Poland, the ship Kommuna is a rescue vessel that was ordered in 1911 and launched a year later. Due to its unique capabilities, the ship has survived World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues to serve in the Black Sea Fleet.
The extent of the damage is unknown, and only time will tell whether the "Kommuna" will be suitable for refurbishment or if, after 111 years, it will be scrapped. The attack was likely carried out by Ukrainians using Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have previously been used against, among others, the submarine "Rostov-on-Don", Ropucha-class landing ships, and Yuri Ivanov-class reconnaissance ships.
An essential relic of the Russian navy from the Tsarist era
The "Kommuna", launched as "Volkhov" in 1915, features a distinctive catamaran-type design with two hulls connected by massive trusses. It is approximately 96 metres in length with a displacement of around 3,400 tonnes and is capable of lifting smaller submarines.
The lifting capacity of "Kommuna" is approximately 1,100 tonnes, enabling it to salvage shipwrecks and more from the seabed. Notable missions include recovering the British submarine HMS L-55 from the Baltic Sea, lifting the wreck of the strike aircraft Su-24 from a depth of about 1,700 meters, participating in the recovery of bodies and parts of the cruiser "Moskva" and searching for the wreck of the American drone MQ-9A Reaper shot down by Russians over the Black Sea.
Over time, the "Kommuna" has also been used as a floating base for the Panther Plus-type underwater robots and the AS-28 deep-sea rescue submersibles. It appears that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the last conflict in which "Kommuna" participated.
