This is just a quickie post as i have to get on the road soon. I’ve come across reports that a Russian corvette is burning outside Sevastopol. It’s seen in the video, embedded below, outside the anchorage belching black smoke. As the uploader, Suchomimus states, the ship appears to be moving under its own power, and is not listing. He also jokes that it is doing its best impression of the Admiral Kusnetov, which many of you will be familiar with as the Russian aircraft carrier that cleverly moves about the world enshrouded in its own smokescreen.
I think the comparison may be more than a little fitting in this case, however. The smoke appears to be emanating from quite low on the ship. Suchomimus provides a file photo of the ship, a Buyan-M corvette. Here’s a screenshot:
Note the exhaust port that i’ve circled. This is consistent with where the black smoke appears to be coming from in the video.
Now, that doesn’t preclude there being a fire in the engine room. However, as stated, the ship is proceeding under its own power. I suspect that this is simply another case of a Russian ship whose power plant is giving up the oily, black ghost. Given the stress that Ukraine has been putting on the Russian Navy this wouldn’t be a surprise.
Some of you might recall that i was also skeptical when the first reports of that terrific double strike on a submarine and landing ship while in drydock first appeared. I was wrong, very much to my pleasure, but there simply was not clear enough evidence of the hoped-for destruction to my liking. I do hope that i am similarly mistaken this time but the video just does not seem to show what we’d all like it to be.
What do you all think?