"Rashomon" appeared again in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The controversy revolves around whether the Russian reconnaissance ship Ivan Coors destroyed three incoming Ukrainian suicide boats and whether the intelligence ship was unharmed. Recent information reversals have appeared many times, highlighting the fierce confrontation between the two sides in this war.
Initially, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video showing a Ukrainian suicide drone, trying to attack the Russian Navy reconnaissance ship "Ivan Coors", being hit by a 14.5mm machine gun on board and triggering an explosion. The Russian Ministry of Defense then claimed that the three incoming unmanned boats were destroyed by the standard weapons of Russian warships, and the warships themselves were not damaged and continued to perform their tasks.
However, after the Russian side announced that the Russian warship was fine, the official account of Ukrainian TV posted a 15-second video on social media, claiming to be a real-time shot from an unmanned Ukrainian ship. The video shows an unmanned boat approaching an unidentified warship at extremely high speeds, almost approaching the stern of the ship. At a position of about 1 meter from the ship, the Ukrainian unmanned attack boat launched a "desperate" charge against the Russian army, and the video came to an abrupt end. The video is accompanied by a caption that states: "The unmanned boat of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Service did hit the Russian reconnaissance ship 'Ivan Kurs', which has been damaged by the explosion, as evidenced by this video".
However, doubts soon emerged. It was found that the so-called reconnaissance ship "Ivan Coors" in the Ukrainian video did not have the hull number and name of the ship, but in early photos, it can be seen that the ship's name in Russian is located in the stern, which is also shown in the Ukrainian video. Therefore, there are doubts about the authenticity of the Ukrainian video.
However, the Western media also pointed out that after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it is not uncommon for the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to erase the name and sponson, probably to confuse Ukrainian and Western intelligence analysts. Therefore, the ship attacked in the video released by the Ukrainian side may still be the reconnaissance ship "Ivan Coors".
Analysts believe that the video shows that the Ukrainian unmanned attack boat made several maneuvers to avoid the fire of Russian machine guns when approaching the Russian reconnaissance ship "Ivan Coors". This shows that the unmanned attack boats of the Ukrainian army have excellent maritime maneuverability. The 14.5mm machine gun on the Russian ship is a simple weapon operated by the crew, so to find the target at a long distance and shoot accurately, the Russian military needs to have excellent maritime reconnaissance capabilities and rapid reaction capabilities.
However, the stealth design of Ukrainian unmanned attack boats, especially in the event of night or early morning attacks, gives it a high hit rate. Ukrainian unmanned attack boats can be connected to NATO reconnaissance and intelligence systems through data links, and Ukrainian personnel are fully capable of controlling their trajectory. These characteristics give the Ukrainian unmanned attack craft excellent attack flexibility.
In the maritime confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, Russia is a passive party, and mistakes will inevitably occur. Therefore, although the attack is still full of doubts, in the information war, the Russian side has suffered a big loss.