Hot war: Ukraine shows off that the second Russian warship was hit by a missile and caught on fire, the US said it didn’t know anything

According to this report, the Russian ship Admiral Makarov, was sailing near Snake Island in the Black Sea, off the coast of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, when it was hit by an R-360 Neptune anti-ship missile fired from the Ukrainian mainland.

According to the Kyiv Post, the General Staff of Ukraine and Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said that the ship was hit by bullets. However, Russia has denied that. It remains unclear whether the ship was engaged in combat prior to the attack.

Several Twitter accounts that monitor open source flight data collected from satellites and transponders report that known Russian rescue ships and planes have rushed to the area, shortly after the announcement. It is believed that the Makarov was hit by a missile.

Those accounts also reported that an unarmed US military RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone flew around the area, suggesting that an incident may have occurred. Photos of a burning ship, claimed by users to be Makarov, have gone viral on social media, although these photos have not been confirmed.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US had “no information” about the attack.

The attack on the Makarov comes just three weeks after the Ukrainian military sank the Moskova, the flagship of the Russian navy during Ukraine’s maritime blockade. That ship was also hit by a Neptune missile, a domestically developed system.

Henry Hendrix, a retired US Navy captain and maritime strategist told the National Review that the attack was a “significant blow” to Russia.

The Makarov, the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate, is one of Russia’s newest naval vessels, commissioned in 2017 and described as one of the most powerful in the Black Sea. Two other ships of the same class, the Admiral Grigorovich and the Admiral Essen, are engaged in wars with Ukrainian forces, which began in February after Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine.