PUTIN has been humiliated after it was revealed he lost 74 sailors when Ukraine blitzed warship Novocherkassk in a Storm Shadow missile strike, according to a hacked document.

The embarrassing death toll is far higher than Russia’s claim of one dead, a civilian port worker, and six wounded. 

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Another 27 were wounded in the attack on Feodosia port in annexed Crimea, according to the source.

Moscow does not dare tell its people about the scale of the deaths and injuries – and has been seeking to downplay the losses.

It amounts to Putin’s largest naval loss in a single incident during the 22-month war. 

The destruction of the Novocherkassk landing ship claimed seven times more lives than the sinking of Putin’s prized Moskva.

The new death toll was revealed in a document unearthed by the Ukrainian hacker group Cyber Resistance.

It showed Putin’s naval commander-in-chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov had even requested a rare day of mourning following the explosion.

It appears this request was never granted as the Kremlin seeks to downplay the military disaster.

Novocherkassk was likely packed with munitions when it was hit by the Storm Shadow missile on Boxing Day.

The ship was torn apart and left nothing more than a twisted wreck.

It is also known that two pro-Putin media outlets in annexed Crimea – Sevastopol News portal and NTS media outlet – carried reports on the true death toll of 74.

However, the publications quickly removed them – almost certainly based on censorship by the FSB counterintelligence service. 

The reports remain available in cached files online.

Putin has repeatedly refused to publish details of losses in a succession of war disasters.

The tyrant is reportedly furious in the wake of the attack, and on Friday launched a “revenge” missile and kamikaze drone onslaught on Ukraine.

At least 30 died and 160 were wounded. 

British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Russia misled when it claimed Putin’s warship Novocherkassk was merely ‘damaged’.”

It comes as Britain is set to hand over 200 air defence missiles to Ukraine after Putin’s sickening “revenge” barrage killed 28 civilians.

The British ministry of defence confirmed the massive shipment Yesterday.

The announcement came as Russia unleashed a relentless onslaught of missiles on Ukraine which killed 28 people, according to the Ukrainian government and reported by the BBC.

In what is believed to be the biggest aerial attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the bloody war, a total of 158 missiles and countless drone strikes hit homes, a maternity hospital, and a shopping mall.

Putin’s attempt to cover up his losses follows a series of embarrassing blunders made by Russian troops throughout the war.

In early December Russia lost a dozen elite marines when they cooked food on an open fire and triggered an explosion from nearby live ammunition.

And a Major Russian news outlets boasted a precision Lancet drone attack on a Ukrainian warplane on the ground – only to find that they had destroyed a worthless decoy. 

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