Ukraine Sea Drone Sinks Russian Ship Near Compound Said to Be Linked to Putin
Attack shows extent to which the drones have helped Kyiv exercise greater control in the Black Sea
July 14, 2026 6:16 pm ET
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-- Ukraine said one of its naval drones sank a Russian patrol ship called the Emerald docked in the Black Sea resort town of Gelendzhik on Tuesday.
-- The Emerald was operated by Russia’s FSB security service and took part in a November 2018 attack on Ukrainian ships, according to Ukraine’s navy.
-- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strike, which occurred about 270 miles from the front lines.
Ukraine said one of its naval drones on Tuesday sank a Russian patrol ship docked in the Black Sea resort town of Gelendzhik, close to a luxurious compound allegedly linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At least one domestically produced Sargan-3000 sea drone struck a ship called the Emerald, killing some crew members and injuring others, Ukraine’s navy said in a post on social media.
The attack is the latest demonstration of the extent to which Ukrainian naval drones have helped Kyiv exercise greater control in the Black Sea.
A 200-foot-long vessel with a helicopter landing pad, the Emerald was operated by Russia’s FSB security service, rather than its regular military, according to the post. The FSB patrols Russia’s borders and has taken a leading role in Putin’s crackdown on domestic dissent.
Ukraine’s navy said that the Emerald took part in a November 2018 attack on Ukrainian ships in the Kerch strait, the narrow body of water separating the Russian mainland from Crimea peninsula, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine’s navy posted a satellite photo of the damaged ship, which appeared to have broken in half. The Russian town of Gelendzhik is less than 15 miles from an opulent palace that was the focus of an investigation by the late opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
In a video posted in January 2021, the Kremlin critic and anticorruption campaigner alleged that the
losely guarded property was built for Putin and funded by businessmen close to the Russian leader as “the world’s largest bribe.” People briefed on the property say Putin spends time there, but they didn’t say how frequently he visits.
Navalny’s team released the video to YouTube shortly after he returned to Russia from Germany and was arrested. The nearly two-hour video showed a sprawling compound fitted out with lavish features, including a tea house, an amphitheater and a helipad.
Putin at the time denied owning the palace. A businessman and longtime associate of the Russian leader, Arkady Rotenberg, said he was the owner of the closely guarded property.
Navalny died in a remote Arctic prison in 2024. His widow has blamed Putin for her husband’s death and said it was caused by poisoning. The Kremlin denies involvement in his death, which Russian officials blamed on natural causes.
The Kremlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the drone strike or the palace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strike on the ship in Gelendzhik, as well as another attack on a tanker in Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers used to ship crude oil and other cargoes in circumvention of Western sanctions. Zelensky noted that the strike was about 270 miles from the front lines.
Kyiv has previously used naval drones to damage a Russian-built bridge over the Kerch strait and Moscow’s warships in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. The threat of such strikes contributed to Russia’s 2023 decision to pull its Black Sea fleet back from Sevastopol to other ports that offer better protection from the drone fleet.
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Alexander Osipovich is a London-based business, finance and economics reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He previously covered exchanges and cryptocurrencies. Before joining The Wall Street Journal in 2016, he worked for The Moscow Times, Agence France-Presse and Risk.net, a trade publication
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