Engine fire on Northern Fleet destroyer, Ukrainian military claims

“The struggle for survivability continues, we hope it will be useless,” Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian armed forces wrote Monday evening on his Facebook page. The news is brought public by several media in Kyiv, among them Radio Svoboda and Kyiv Independent. 

Neither the Northern Fleet nor other officials in the Russian armed forces have confirmed or denied the news. Russian media are with the current war-laws not allowed to bring forward news about the country’s armed forces, unless made public by the military or any of the state-controlled information agencies. 

The Barents Observer could by Monday evening not confirm. No Telegram bloggers in the Murmansk region has reported about any fire on a Northern Fleet warship in the Barents Sea. 

The 36 years old anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Lavchenko is of the Udaloy class is normally sailing with a crew of 200 to 300 persons. 

Crew members at duty on the bridge of Admiral Lavchenko. Photo: Northern Fleet information department

On Sunday, the information department of the Northern Fleet in Severomorsk reported that the warship carried out artillery and anti-aircraft shootings in the Barents Sea. Some of the targets for the artillery firing were on the coast of the Fishermen Peninsula not far from Russia’s border with Norway.

The Admiral Lachenko. was then sailing together with her sister-vessel Vice Admiral Kulakov. 

Pletenchuk with the Ukrainian navy claims the fire started in after an engine malfunction. 

Last week, the Northern Fleet reported two nuclear powered submarines taking part in the navy drill in the same area.

Exact position of Admiral Lavchenko is not known, but the vessel is likely not too far north in the Barents Sea. The waters north of the Kola Bay, east of the Fishermen Peninsula, are currently closed off. Navigation warnings are issued by the Russian Arctic Coastal Administration in Murmansk. NOTAM warnings to civilian aircraft for the same area are active. 

The red areas are locations for the Russian Northern Fleet’s ongoing combat exercise in the Barents Sea. Screenshot from Notammap.net

If true, any fire onboard a warship like the Admiral Lavchenko is very serious. The warship is heavily armed with torpedos and air missiles, as well as rocket launchers.