Ukraine claims attack killed 33 top Russian officers

 Daily Beast:

In one of the most devastating blows of the war so far, Ukraine says it took out a whole chunk of Russia’s naval leadership in a single missile attack, which killed the commander of the notorious Black Sea Fleet.

Vice Admiral Viktor Sokolov was allegedly killed in Friday’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s HQ in Crimea, which was illegally occupied by Russia in 2014.

Sokolov, who was drafted in to beef up the faltering navy last year, was attending a meeting of top naval and military figures when the missile crashed into the building in Sevastopol, according to the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine. The Spetsnaz unit claims that 34 officers in total were killed in the explosion.

A huge plume of black smoke was seen billowing from the building last Friday in one of Ukraine’s most stunning missile assaults of the war. The direct hit on the naval command center was a symbolic blow for Russia as the Black Sea Fleet has been a source of national pride since it was established by Catherine the Great in 1783.

President Vladimir Putin fired the commander of the fleet last year after it suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks including the sinking of its lead warship, the Moskva, and an attack on its air base in Crimea that saw eight warplanes destroyed.

American Long-Range Missiles Threaten to Blast Through Putin’s ‘Red Line’

Sokolov, who previously held a prestigious role as the head of a military academy, was brought back into active service to reinstate pride in the Black Sea Fleet.

His death—compounded by those of so many of his colleagues—in the heart of the fleet’s operation would represent a severe blow to that pride.

Over the weekend, rumors on social media began to suggest that Sokolov had been caught up in the explosion. The Special Operations Forces posted its confirmation on Telegram on Monday.

“After the attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters, 34 officers, including the Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, lost their lives, with an additional 105 occupants sustaining injuries. The headquarters building is beyond repair,” the Telegram statement read.

The special forces unit did not name any of the other victims of the attack by one of the Storm Shadow air-launched missiles donated by Britain and France earlier this year.

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, previously said Col. Gen. Alexander Romanchuk, the commander of Russian forces on the southern front, and Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsekov were seriously wounded in the attack.
...

Russia later released a video of Admiral Sokolova but it is not clear if it was taken before or after the attack in which he was allegedly killed.  But the attack is significant.  Russia has already lost more top commanders in this war.  The Russians have pushed the commanders close to the front and that has exposed them to such attacks.

See, also:

Ukrainian drone attacks airfield near Kursk: air regiment's leaders killed and wounded

This attack is apparently different from the missile attack noted above, but it indicates Ukraine is trying to decapitate much of the Russian military in this war.

 And:

Ukrainian drone leaves 7 settlements without electricity in Kursk Oblast, Russia

And:

 Russian officers who hadn't been paid by Moscow sold key intel on the Black Sea Fleet to Ukrainian resistance fighters. Then the headquarters blew up.

After missing their anticipated salary payments, Russian officers decided to leak sensitive information about Moscow's Black Sea Fleet to a Ukrainian partisan movement. The intelligence later paved the way for a devastating missile strike on the fleet's headquarters in the occupied Crimean Peninsula, Ukrainian media reported.

Ukrainian resistance fighters told the Kyiv Post in a recent interview that they managed to gather information about high-ranking Russian commanders from officers who were frustrated by Moscow's failure to pay their salaries on time. They said the officers were financially compensated in exchange for the information, which was then passed along to state agencies and reportedly used to plan last week's attack on the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters.
...

And:

 An insider claims Putin ordered his defense minister to stop Ukraine's counteroffensive within a month — and it may explain why Russia is making costly attacks, war analysts say

And:

 Russia unleashes hypersonic missiles on Odesa port in overnight attack

And:

 UN says Russian troops torturing Ukrainians to death, reveals 1 survivor suffered shocks for ‘an eternity’

ISW reports: 

Russian forces conducted a series of Shahed-131/136 drone and missile strikes on the night of September 24-25 against Ukrainian port, grain, and military targets. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched 12 Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles from the Black Sea, two Onyx cruise missiles from the Sevastopol area, and 19 Shahed drones from Krasnodar Krai.[13] Ukrainian air defenses shot down 11 Kalibr missiles and all 19 drones.[14] Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces struck port and grain infrastructure in Odesa Oblast, and footage shows that Russian strikes damaged a hotel in Odesa City.[15] Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), claimed that Russian forces struck a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter aircraft at the Dolhintsevo airfield in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[16] Moldovan government officials stated on September 25 that fragments of an S-300 missile fell in Chitcani (5km south of Tiraspol) in Transnistria and that the missile’s origin and flight path have not been confirmed.[17]

...