DRAMATIC footage captured a fierce sea battle as terror-stricken Russian sailors attempted to stave off a relentless Ukrainian kamikaze drone attack.
A GoPro video was made aboard the doomed £170million Caesar Kunikov landing ship that exploded into a fireball and sank as a Valentine's gift for President Putin.
The extraordinary footage sees Russian seamen desperately try to save the 369ft warship - which was lurking near to annexed Crimea - from the attack by pumping the water with lead.
There is absolute chaos on the deck when Putin's forces see the drones weaving towards them in the Black Sea and struggle to repel the attack.
But the swarm of jet-ski powered USVs were completely undeterred in their assault and the video climaxes as an explosion sunk and destroyed the hulking vessel.
The warship was lost on February 14 but the footage has only become available now, leaked to popular Russian Telegram channel FighterBomber.
The video surfaced only two days after yet another Russian warship, the modern Sergey Kotov patrol ship, was sunk off Crimea in a separate marine drone attack by Kyiv.
The £51million vessel, only in service since 2022, was blown to pieces in an early morning strike and it was all captured on PoV footage smirkingly released by Ukraine.
The consequence is that Putin has lost his dominance in the western sector of the Black Sea - which Moscow used to have complete dominance over.
It was released in an apparent attempt to show the bravery of the sailors in their battle to destroy the unmanned drones hunting the ship.
However, the clip instead highlights how Ukraine has changed naval warfare forever as a major Russian battleship was helpless against - five to 10 high-speed MAGURA V5 drones controlled by operators perhaps hundreds of miles away.
The small, but lethal weapons are Kyiv's newest marine drone type that is helping to blast Putin's Black Sea fleet out the sea and were used again in this week's sinking of the Kotov.
No confirmed death toll has emerged, but unconfirmed reports suggested at least 17 of the Russian crew of up to 87 were lost as the Caesar Kunikov met her end.
An anonymous crew member - seeking to dispute Russian claims that the sailors had been “cowards” and failed in their duty - said his GoPro footage showed they “repelled the attack of [marine drones] with all available forces and means” in the fierce sea battle.
The source said there were ten drones but Ukraine has only admitted to five.
“The 5th [drone] hit the ship in the stern, so immobilising the ship, after which 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th marine drones struck the ship on the port side in the midships and closer to the stern, with the purpose of capsizing the vessel."
“The 9th marine drone partially entered the hole made by the previous drone and detonated almost inside.
The crew member added: “The ship could no longer be saved - the list was rapidly increasing.”
This claim was confirmed by the fiery footage at the time.
“From the moment the enemy marine drones were discovered and the start of the battle, until the ship was completely flooded, a little more than 40 minutes had passed.
“The crew left the ship using life rafts, without loss of personnel, and evacuated all secret documentation and part of the secret equipment with weapons.”
Ukrainian accounts suggest there were Russian losses.
“The last 10th marine drone conducted observation [recording] the dying ship until the sinking, after which the 10th drone tried to attack the tug accompanying the BDK Caesar Kunikov, but was destroyed by the group on board.”
If true, the footage of the Putin warship’s last moments had been transmitted to Kyiv.
Pro-war channel FighterBomber - commenting on the Caesar Kunikov’s last battle - hit out at the vilification of the crew.
“At the moment, the crew are being made into cowards and scoundrels….“[Yet] there was a fight there, according to the best traditions of our grandfathers.
“Personally, I saw the clear work of the team working until the last minute. The crew, I think, at a minimum, deserves not to be made into villains.”
The embarrassing sinking led to the immediate dismissal of the Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov - despite claims he had been killed in a Shadow-Storm missile attack in the summer.
Despite having no large naval ships left of its own, it is estimated that Kyiv has managed to sink nearly a third of Putins' once feared Black Sea fleet (25 warships and one submarine).
What's left of it has retreated and is now expected to relocate to a naval base to the Moscow-backed Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia.
