Video: Ukraine Damages Russian Missile Boat in the Sea of Azov

Ukraine military intelligence has released a video showing one of its one-way attack aerial drones attacking a Buyan-M Class Project 21631 missile corvette in the Sea of Azov. The corvette was hit and damaged on August 28, but it is not yet clear if the vessel has been able to recover to port.

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine strikes russian "buyan-m" corvette — a carrier of "kalibr" cruise missiles — in the Azov Sea

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— Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) August 28, 2025

The attack is noteworthy because of the location of the attack. The Sea of Azov is effectively a Russian lake, Ukraine having lost its control of coastline in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia in 2022. Hence Ukraine will have had to fly the attack drone either through Russian land-based air defenses in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, or taken a longer route over the sea and around Crimea. The drone’s pilots will then need to have locked onto the target at this long range.

Location of the corvette when struck in the Sea of Azov (45°42′N 35°18′E ) (Google Earth, Landsat Copernicus, CJRC)

Ukraine has demonstrated it can do this against static targets at extreme range. However, to be able to do so against a moving target at long range is technically a considerable accomplishment. This should once again cause Russian naval commanders to consider the security of their naval assets even in ports far distant from Crimea such as Novorossiysk, to where vessels have already been pulled back for safety. The attack may have been mounted by Ukraine to demonstrate that it can control sea approaches to the Sea of Azov ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, which Russia has recently sought to open to foreign shipping.

Buyan-M Class Project 21631 missile corvette (Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)

Buyan-M Class corvettes are primarily designed for littoral coastal defense, and are the mainstay of both what remains of the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla. They are however armed with two vertical launch cells, each able to hold four Kalibr missiles. The Kalibr is designed to be an anti-ship weapon, but has frequently been used to hit ground targets in Ukraine. In its land-attack version, the Kalibr has a range of 1,500 miles, and can therefore hit targets anywhere in Ukraine form the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.