Leaked video confirms Ukrainian drones destroyed Russian corvette Boikiy in St Petersburg attack.

A Ukrainian drone strike has effectively removed the Russian Baltic Fleet corvette Boikiy from operational service after the warship suffered catastrophic damage while in dry dock at Kronstadt, according to leaked footage shared on June 4, 2026, by the Russian Telegram channel Dosye Shpiona. The attack is strategically significant because it struck an actively deployed combatant at one of Russia’s most important naval support hubs, exposing the vulnerability of high-value warships during maintenance periods when mobility and self-protection are severely reduced.

The most critical damage appears to be the destruction of the Boikiy’s integrated mast, which concentrated the ship’s air-surveillance radar, targeting systems, communications, electronic warfare equipment, navigation sensors, and command-and-control functions. Even without sinking the vessel, the loss of these systems can neutralize much of its combat capability, highlighting how modern naval warfare increasingly focuses on disabling sensors and battle-management networks rather than destroying ships outright.

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The footage shows the Project 20380 Steregushchiy-class corvette Boikiy engulfed by fire inside the Veleshchynskyi Dry Dock at the Kronstadt Naval Plant, resulting in the total collapse of its integrated sensor mast. (Picture source: Telegram/Dosye Shpiona)

On June 4, 2026, a leaked video shared by the Russian Telegram channel Dosye Shpiona provided the first visual confirmation that the Baltic Fleet corvette Boikiy suffered catastrophic damage during a Ukrainian drone attack against Kronstadt on June 3, which possibly involved the use of the FP-2. The footage shows the Project 20380 Steregushchiy-class corvette engulfed by fire inside the Veleshchynskyi Dry Dock at the Kronstadt Naval Plant, with the vessel's integrated mast structure completely collapsed and much of the superstructure destroyed. On a Russian Project 20380 corvette, the mast is the central node that combines air surveillance, targeting, communications, navigation, electronic warfare, and command-and-control functions.

The Boikiy entered service on May 14, 2013, as the third Steregushchiy-class corvette and remained operational until the days immediately preceding the attack. During 2025 and 2026, the ship repeatedly operated beyond the Baltic Sea, escorting submarines, logistics vessels, and sanctioned commercial shipping through some of Europe's most heavily monitored maritime corridors. The strike, therefore, removed from service a warship that remained actively deployed in operational and strategic missions by Russia. The Ukrainian attack occurred during the morning of June 3 while Boikiy was undergoing maintenance work inside the Veleshchynskyi Dry Dock at Kronstadt.

Located on Kotlin Island, approximately 30 km west of central St. Petersburg, Kronstadt functions as one of the Russian Navy's most important support hubs in the Baltic region. The installation combines ship repair infrastructure, maintenance facilities, fleet support functions, and command elements supporting Baltic Fleet operations. Because the corvette was in dry dock, it lacked every defensive advantage normally available to a warship at sea. It could not maneuver, change position, increase speed, disperse to another anchorage, or leave the area. At least two drones reportedly struck the vessel, and the resulting fire appears to have propagated upward through the superstructure rather than downward through engineering spaces or the underwater hull, while one sailor was reported killed.

The fact that the vessel was hit inside a fixed maintenance facility is operationally significant because dry docks concentrate high-value naval assets in predictable locations where mobility, one of the most effective forms of naval protection, is completely absent. The most consequential damage appears to involve the destruction of the integrated sensor mast. This structure housed the Furke-2 (5P-27) three-dimensional air-search radar, the primary sensor responsible for air surveillance. The Furke-2 provides the simultaneous detection and tracking of 100 to 200 aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles,  and incoming missiles at ranges commonly reported between 100 and 150 km.

The same mast contains the Monument-A surface-targeting radar, which performs an equally critical role, generating targeting information for the ship's eight Kh-35 Uran anti-ship missiles. Also installed within the mast are the HF, VHF, UHF, and satellite communications antennas linking the ship to Baltic Fleet headquarters, naval aviation assets, coastal command centers, and other warships. Components of the TK-25E-5 electronic warfare suite are also mounted within the same structure. The TK-25E-5 performs radar warning, emitter identification, electronic support measures, and electronic countermeasures, processing hundreds of electromagnetic emissions and helping protect the ship against radar-guided threats.

Navigation radars, Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems, GPS and GLONASS antennas, and aviation-support systems used during Ka-27 helicopter operations are also integrated in this mast. Consequently, the destruction of the mast simultaneously affects surveillance, targeting, communications, navigation, electronic warfare, and aviation support. The Boikiy displaces between 2,100 and 2,250 tonnes at full load, measures 104.5 meters in length, and operates with a crew of roughly 100 personnel. The vessel carries eight Kh-35 Uran anti-ship missiles, a 12-cell Redut vertical-launch air defense system, two quadruple Paket-NK launchers carrying up to eight anti-submarine or anti-torpedo weapons, an A-190 100 mm naval gun, two AK-630 close-in weapon systems, and a Ka-27 helicopter housed in an enclosed hangar.

On paper, this combination gives the ship anti-surface, anti-air, and anti-submarine capabilities. In practice, however, almost every major weapon aboard the vessel depends on the mast architecture that appears to have been destroyed. The Redut air defense system requires surveillance and tracking data. The Kh-35 missiles require surface-targeting information. The helicopter depends on communications, navigation, and control systems. The combat management network depends on sensor inputs arriving from the mast. As a result, the sensors and command systems often account for a larger share of operational capability than the launchers and guns themselves. The Boikiy occupied an important place within the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet.

Assigned to the 128th Surface Ship Brigade and built at Severnaya Verf in St. Petersburg, the vessel is one of four Project 20380 corvettes serving with the fleet. These ships replaced Soviet-era Grisha-class anti-submarine vessels and constitute the Baltic Fleet's principal inventory of modern light multi-role surface combatants. The removal of a single vessel, therefore, affects approximately 25 percent of the fleet's Project 20380 inventory. Unlike larger navies that can absorb the temporary loss of an individual ship through numerical depth, the Baltic Fleet has limited redundancy within this category of warship, as the Project 20380 vessels perform patrol duties, escort missions, anti-submarine operations, local air defense tasks, and maritime security operations.

A prolonged absence of the Boikiy (an euphemism) therefore reduces the Baltic Fleet's capability across multiple mission areas simultaneously. In January 2025, the Boikiy accompanied the Improved Kilo-class submarine Novorossiysk through the North Sea, where the formation was tracked by Dutch naval forces near the Dutch Exclusive Economic Zone. During March 2025, the corvette also escorted the cargo vessel Baltic Leader from the eastern Mediterranean toward Russia after operations affecting maritime logistics routes connecting Russia and Syria. The ship subsequently conducted multiple English Channel transits monitored by Royal Navy units. In June 2025, the Boikiy also escorted the sanctioned tankers Selva and Sierra through the Channel.

These missions demonstrate the importance of the vessel for Russia. Rather than being used solely as a fleet combatant assigned to traditional naval exercises or Baltic patrol duties, the corvette increasingly served as a key escort asset protecting strategically important maritime movements. The vessel therefore contributed directly to safeguarding logistics traffic, commercial shipping, and politically sensitive sea lines of communication extending far beyond the Baltic Sea. Repairing the vessel would require far more than replacing damaged external structures.

Reconstruction of the mast alone would involve replacing the Furke-2 radar, Monument-A radar, communications arrays, electronic warfare equipment, antenna systems, processing hardware, cooling equipment, and large sections of cabling running throughout the ship. Fire damage aboard modern warships frequently extends beyond visible burn areas because high temperatures travel through cable trunks and enclosed compartments containing electronics. Sensitive sensors, processors, transmitters, and combat management equipment can therefore become unusable even when external structures remain intact.

The challenge is compounded by the fact that systems installed aboard Project 20380 corvettes are specialized naval equipment produced through Russian defense-industrial supply chains rather than commercially available components. Firefighting operations may have introduced additional damage through the large volumes of water used to suppress the blaze. Saltwater and contaminated runoff can penetrate cable trunks, electronic compartments, radar equipment spaces, and power distribution systems, causing corrosion, short circuits, and failures that may not become apparent until detailed inspection and testing are completed.

If the strike penetrated deck structures beneath the mast, repairs would also expand from systems replacement into structural reconstruction, potentially extending the shipyard period considerably, if the ship has not been scrapped in the meantime. Beyond the immediate damage to Boikiy, the strike highlights a broader vulnerability affecting Kronstadt, which contains key infrastructure, maintenance facilities, repair capacity, and command functions essential to sustaining Baltic Fleet operations. The attack targeted a stationary warship whose location was fixed and predictable because it was undergoing maintenance.

Dry docks inherently concentrate valuable naval assets while simultaneously restricting their ability to react. The incident also illustrates a broader trend in contemporary naval warfare. Modern warships derive much of their military value from sensors, communications networks, targeting systems, and battle management architecture. Destroying these functions can neutralize a combatant without sinking it. In the case of Boikiy, the area that appears to have suffered the greatest damage contains precisely those systems. The strike, therefore, achieved effects extending beyond physical destruction of the superstructure. It removed a functioning multi-role combatant from the Baltic Fleet while simultaneously affecting maintenance infrastructure at one of the most important naval facilities in northwestern Russia.

Written by Jérôme Brahy

Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.

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