Novocherkassk Landing Ship Destroyed by Own Ammo

December 26, 2023May 4, 2026

The video of the explosion went viral worldwide, and Novocherkassk landing ship destroyed gave people a surge of raw, positive emotions. The most experienced among them, understanding that the Rotten Federation is the successor to the Soviet Union, rejoiced because Ukraine is now restoring historical justice and repaying russia the debt not repaid to the USSR. Others moved from thinking russians can be beaten to a much simpler conclusion — they must be beaten. In any case, the joy was bright and liberating, freeing people from superstitious fears about Orcs’* invincibility.

Some details of the incident started emerging online. For example, everyone now understands that the russian expression “the ship received some damage” actually means it’s destroyed and sunk. Therefore, in retrospective mode, Orcs can now recall how other ships “received damage” and finally disappeared, including their flagship. Meanwhile, satellite images already appeared showing how it all looked once and how the pier looks now, where landing ships usually moored.

As you can see, the Novocherkassk landing ship destroyed lies right at the pier, though a significant part of it got scattered across the city. A missile with a 450-kilogram warhead can’t do this, and everyone understands that the ship’s hold contents detonated. It’s clear that missiles couldn’t shred the landing ship like this, much less sink another training ship standing nearby with the blast wave.

What Really Detonated

Now they’re saying 4,400 shells of 152mm caliber detonated there. If you figure each shell in its package weighs 80 kg, you can calculate that’s somewhere around 350+ tons of shells. Granted, if these were shells and not Shaheds, it’s still better than two Storm Shadow missiles in terms of volumetric detonation. Only practice shows that when strikes hit an arsenal, not all shells participates in the general detonation. The blast throws some fragments far from the epicenter. That’s understandable — shells have quite a thick body and some portion should have survived and scattered. But in this case, nobody reports this. Therefore, we believe something more fragile detonated.

The version that this ship could have been transporting Shahed-136 drones and not shells is quite plausible. But it didn’t bring them from Iran, because Iran has no access to the Black Sea. Iranians deliver drones to Orcs via the Caspian Sea, then by rail to Novorossiysk or Temryuk, and from there landing ships transport them to Feodosia or Mariupol.

The enemy already mentioned that 30+ crew members are considered missing. But here’s what’s interesting — two kilometers from the landing ship stood and still stands an S-400 air defense complex, but it looks like the complex stopped being a priority target and they simply don’t pay attention to it.

Killed by Their Own Ammunition

The moral here is simple: the crew got themselves killed by their own ammunition. If two missiles had hit the landing ship at the pier, the damage would’ve been nasty — but not catastrophic. Instead, the ship blew up from the inside, along with its crew. That’s no longer “damage” — that’s something else entirely. Chunks of the hull, some weighing up to a ton, landed as far as a kilometer away. Just imagine the force needed to rip off steel that thick and throw it that far.

*Orcs – a common term for Russians who support or participate in the armed aggression against Ukraine. Dehumanizing? Yes. Accurate? Also yes.