A Ukrainian special forces soldier who snuck into Crimea in a nighttime raid said he was chased by Russian warships as he left

• Ukraine's special forces recently conducted a nighttime raid on Crimea using jet skis.

• A soldier involved in the raid said they were chased by Russian warships as they left, but escaped.

• Ukraine has launched attacks on Crimea as it vows to take back the peninsula from Russia.

A Ukrainian special forces soldier said he and his comrades were chased by Russian warships after a daring nighttime raid on occupied Crimea.

The soldier was speaking about an amphibious operation earlier this month, CNN reported.

The goal of the raid was to sabotage Russian military equipment and also keep Ukrainian hopes alive that it will retake the peninsula, CNN reported.

Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 and is now a key base from which it launches many of its attacks on Ukraine.

Ukraine destroyed Russian military equipment close to the coast, the report said, and the soldier told CNN that "on the way back after the task the Russian warships were chasing us, but we managed to escape."

The operation went well, the soldier, who uses the call sign Muzykant, which means "the musician," said.

"We trained a lot for this mission. Everybody knew their role, what they were supposed to do on the shore," he added.

According to CNN's report, the soldiers involved took speed boats to cross the sea, and then changed to riding on jet skis when they got closer to the peninsula, to make it harder to detect them.

Ukraine's military intelligence service, known as GUR, said on October 4 that some of its forces had landed in Crimea, without revealing specific details.

GUR representative Andrey Yusov told Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda that Ukraine suffered losses, but that Russia had suffered much higher losses.

Nighttime aerial footage released by Ukraine showed jet skis crossing the sea toward Crimea, and then slowing down as they reached the shore and soldiers getting out.

Ukrainian soldiers then appear to hold up a Ukrainian flag.

Muzykant described the dangers to Ukrainian soldiers during the raid.

He told CNN that the sea was "stormy" when they landed, with waves up to 6.6 feet high.

"Plus the Russian warships were patrolling the sea, the Raptors. There were four of them, each with a crew of 20 Russian soldiers armed with heavy machine guns and a 30-millimeter gun," he said.

His battalion had 10 soldiers in the raid, CNN reported. Ukraine has not revealed how many soldiers in total were involved.

"I only really understood I had been to Crimea after we returned to our base," Muzykant said, adding: "I realized we had completed a colossal task."

Muzykant said that during the operation "I was so high on adrenaline."

Crimea, while being an important base for Russia, holds huge symbolic value for both countries.

Ukraine has vowed to take it back as it pushes back against the full-scale invasion Russia launched in February 2022.

Ukraine has ramped up its attacks on Russia's military in Crimea, as well as on the Black Sea Fleet Russia kept there. Russia appears to have moved some ships to other ports as a result.

A group of Ukrainian commandos previously said they covertly traveled to Crimea on jet skis in August and struck a Russian electronic warfare station with anti-tank weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

One of the soldiers involved in that raid promised more similar actions, telling The Times of London: "We now have the means to plan and execute even larger operations. There's a lot more to come."

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