UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES say it successfully sank a large landing ship near the port city of Berdyansk that had been used to supply Russian forces with armoured vehicles.

Russian forces recently occupied the port, which is of significant strategic value as it lies between Crimea and the besieged city of Mariupol.

The Ukrainian navy shared video today and said a vessel called the Orsk had been destroyed by its attacks. The footage showed fire and thick plumes of smoke.

It comes after Russian TV reported earlier this week that the vessel was the first Russian warship to enter Berdyansk.

The port was going to be used to deliver military equipment for the Russians, the report said.

Ukraine claimed two more ships were damaged and a 3,000-tonne fuel tank was destroyed when the Orsk was sunk, causing a fire that spread to nearby ammunition supplies.

Ukrainian armed forces destroyed Russian landing ship Orsk in the occupied port city of Berdyansk. Three more Russian ships there reportedly caught fire pic.twitter.com/vMXfroii6D

— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) March 24, 2022

Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar told Ukrainian TV that the navy had hit a “huge target”, capable of carrying 20 tanks, 45 armoured vehicles and 400 troops.

Russian forces first occupied Berdyansk government buildings on 27 February, three days after Russia’s invasion began.

While Ukrainian television was showing footage of the warship ablaze, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed an emergency NATO summit and a G7 leaders’ meeting by video link.

Zelenskyy said that Russia was using phosphorus bombs, which cause severe burns, conducting indiscriminate shelling of civilians, and could resort to “full-scale use” of chemical weapons.

Ukraine has already lived through “a month of heroic resistance. A month of the darkest suffering,” he said. “To save people and our cities, Ukraine needs military assistance without restrictions.”

Additional reporting from AFP