(Correction by adding the omitted last digit in the date in paragraph 7)
KIEV (Reuters) – The Ukrainian navy and military intelligence have attacked and damaged a former Russian armed forces offshore gas platform in the Black Sea, a navy spokesman said on Saturday.
“The occupiers used this location for GPS spoofing to compromise civilian navigation. We cannot allow this,” Dmytro Pletenchuk said on Facebook.
He released a video taken at night showing an explosion on an offshore platform and the fire that followed. He said Russian forces had deployed equipment and military personnel to the platform half a day before the attack.
“There were no civilians there. The platform did not perform its normal function,” Pletenchuk said.
He did not provide any further details.
Reuters could not independently verify the information. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
Following Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine lost control of numerous offshore gas and oil platforms, some of which are said to have been used by Russian forces for military purposes since then.
Ukraine has succeeded in expelling the Russian Navy from the western Black Sea using naval drones and missiles, allowing Kyiv to open an important maritime transit corridor through which about 60 million tons of cargo were transported last year.
(This story has been refiled to correct the year in paragraph 7 to 2014.)
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Alex Richardson)
