Satellite images confirm damage to two Russian missile frigates

New satellite imagery released by Vantor on August 12 shows visible fire damage on two Russian frigates at the Kalibr cruise missile launchers, the clearest independent look yet at the aftermath of Ukraine’s overnight strike on the naval base at Novorossiysk.

The imagery covers the Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov, both Project 11356R frigates that serve as key Kalibr missile carriers for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Each vessel carries an eight-cell vertical launch system for the missiles, which Russia has used repeatedly to strike targets across Ukraine. Journalist Jake Epstein published the Vantor images on X, noting that both frigates appear to have their forward missile banks affected by strikes and fires, though he did not characterize the vessels as sunk or confirm the ships are permanently disabled.

Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed the previous day that Defense Forces struck four Russian warships at Novorossiysk overnight on August 12, identifying the vessels as Admiral Essen, Admiral Makarov, the Project 21631 small missile ship Buyan-M, and the Project 22160 patrol ship Vasily Bykov. The General Staff described its assessment as preliminary and said the extent of damage was still being determined, a caveat that Wednesday’s satellite imagery has not fully resolved.

The Ukrainian OSINT group Exilenova+ had separately assessed the same general area of damage before the Vantor imagery circulated, identifying strikes near Admiral Makarov’s Kalibr launchers and its rear superstructure, where the ship’s radar systems are mounted, and a similar pattern of launcher-area damage on Admiral Essen. The group’s assessment, along with the newer Vantor imagery, converges on the same conclusion: the visible damage clusters specifically around each frigate’s missile launch cells rather than across the hull broadly.

What the imagery does not establish is how severe that damage actually is. The images show what several analysts have described as a short-duration fire near the launchers, consistent with a drone strike rather than a larger explosive impact, but the underlying condition of the launch tubes, missile inventory, and adjacent electronics cannot be determined from satellite photography alone. A brief fire at a missile launcher does not by itself indicate whether the vertical launch cells were destroyed, disabled, or left functional beneath visible scorching, and it remains possible the ships sustained secondary damage from fragments thrown by the initial detonation.

Repair timelines for damage of this kind are difficult to predict from imagery. Modern warship missile systems integrate dense electronics, wiring and sensor equipment around the launch cells, and even limited fire damage in that area can require extensive diagnostic work before a shipyard can determine what needs replacing. Neither the Russian Ministry of Defense nor Russian state media had issued a public damage assessment for either frigate as of Wednesday.

The strike fits a documented pattern for both ships. Ukrainian forces have previously claimed to have hit the Admiral Essen on March 2, 2026, and the Admiral Makarov on March 6, 2026, according to reporting from the Maritime Executive, though neither of those earlier claimed strikes was confirmed to have caused damage comparable to what Wednesday’s imagery shows. Novorossiysk became the Black Sea Fleet’s primary operating base after Russia relocated much of the fleet there in response to repeated Ukrainian strikes on facilities in Russian-occupied Crimea, a shift that has not insulated the fleet from continued Ukrainian reach.

Beyond the two frigates, Wednesday’s broader satellite coverage and OSINT analysis pointed to damage across Novorossiysk’s port and Black Sea Fleet infrastructure. NOELreports, an open-source analyst who reviewed the Vantor imagery, identified additional damage at the naval base extending to a Krivak-class frigate and other vessels, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Kyiv used a combination of long-range drones and other weapons in what he called a successful operation against Russian fleet vessels in the bay. Zelensky’s account listed a large landing ship and a corvette among the vessels struck, in addition to the two Grigorovich-class frigates.