Russia-Ukraine Flash Report for 5-6-22 11:00 PDT - Russian Frigate Admiral Makarov Update

Only have a few minutes. The short answer - we don't know.

Last night we dismissed the reports and labeled them as misinformation in the Situation Report. There was nothing to support Admiral Makarov had been attacked, damaged, or sunk.

Woke up this morning to a swirl of speculation.

There is a video circulating but there are valid questions about its authenticity. It's allegedly taken from a TB-2 drone, and it appears it is a zoomed-in shot taken from a distance. Quality isn't great.

In support of it being authentic, the ship in the video does match an Admiral Grigorovich class frigate. We notice in the video some edges of what could be telemetry information on the left side of the zoomed-in view. 

There was a sudden increase in monitoring activity in the last 4 to 5 hours by the United States, United Kingdom, and Turkey. Flights happen in this area all the time (Turkey deployed a sub-hunter ship) but there are a lot of assets specifically focused around Snake Island. 

There is a Sentinel satellite shot that could show a ship on fire, at the bow. That is supported by the video that is circulating.

Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov was asked about the claims and told Russian reporters he has "no information." That's a different approach from the Moskva where the Kremlin vehemently denied the ship had any issues.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian General Staff released their second report of the day and made mention of any activity. On the other, other hand, the count of ships sunk increased by one. That count in itself is unrealistic (that's generous). We can confirm four vessels sunk and 3 damaged - 2 of those likely moderately to severely damaged. 

There is no change in communications from the Black Sea Fleet. No increase in secure traffic, no SOS, not even an increase in radio traffic. 

The video circulating could shoe a pennant number on the bow, but the quality is so low that's questionable. Russia painted over the pennant numbers (a common practice in war), which would make the video a fake if that is in fact a pennant number on the bow. Some are saying the radar array doesn't match  Admiral Grigorovich class frigates. The video is of low quality and low resolution, and being shared repeatedly, likely won't be a perfect match. The artifacts of repeatedly compressed video are how we got Vladimir Putin's hand "passing through a microphone." back in March (that didn't happen, it was a video compression illusion).

The Independent, a United Kingdom newspaper that is above the Mirror/Sun/Daily Mail/Jerusalem Post/New York Post is running a story. They aren't the BBC or CBC, but they have credibility.

On the subject of the BBC, as I was writing this:

BBC News Report 

The BBC doesn't add anything beyond what we've reported, but it is noteworthy they put it in print.

The Admiral Makarov is the most modern ship in the Black Sea Fleet, launched in 2017. The 125 meters (409 feet) ship is 3,620 tons with a crew of 200.

If the Admiral Makarov sunk, that will be very hard to hide over the next 12 to 36 hours. If the ship was badly damaged, but can return to Sevastopol under its own power, that will also be hard to hide. 

We simply don't know, but we are leaning toward there was an "incident" that involved the Admiral Makarov.