Russia losing battle at sea

Decimated Black Sea fleet

Ukraine may be losing ground on the land. But it has all but beaten Russia at sea. And it doesn’t even have a navy.

Now President Vladimir Putin’s decimated Black Sea Fleet appears to have largely abandoned occupied Crimea bases under a barrage of drone and missile strikes.

Satellite photos obtained and analysed by open source intelligence (OSINT) show the ports on Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula are now largely empty. The surviving warships have retreated to Russia’s more distant and welcoming bases further south along the east coast of the Black Sea.

“Their navy sucks, their air force sucks, and they’ve lost half a million soldiers,” retired US General Ben Hodges, formerly commander of US forces in Europe, said.

“After 10 years, Russia had every advantage, and they still only occupy 18 per cent of Ukraine.”

But an end to Washington’s support for the embattled democracy has resulted in its defending army running low on crucial artillery and antiaircraft ammunition.

And that comes as enormous stockpiles of North Korean ammunition begin flooding into Russia’s front lines.

As a result, defending Ukrainian troops have been forced to retreat from several strategic strong points in recent weeks. And their capital, Kyiv, has been left exposed to long-range missile strikes.

But the rout of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is being presented as evidence that adequately equipped Ukrainian forces can defeat what - on paper - is an overwhelming opponent.

Victory at sea

The retreat of the Black Sea Fleet comes after President Putin fired Admiral Viktor Sokolov in February after two years of sustained heavy losses - both at sea and inside occupied Crimean ports.

Sokolov’s deputy, Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk, was formally appointed to take command of the fleet last month.

“The Ukrainians have much to be proud of in their drone surface force campaign and have honed their drone swarm tactics to remarkable effect,” says Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) analyst Dr Steven Wills. “The Russian Black Sea fleet, on the other hand, seems to have learned little in the year since Ukrainian unmanned surface attack vessels were first introduced into combat.”

A British Ministry of Defence intelligence assessment states Admiral Pinchuk “likely sought to improve the survival chances of Russian vessels by adopting further preventive and defensive measures, including narrowing the entrance gap to port facilities”.

More than 20 Russian naval vessels had been sunk or damaged before Pinchuk took command.

But another successful Ukrainian strike on the Crimean port of Sevastopol on March 24 damaged two of his five surviving amphibious landing ships (Russia started the war with 13), as well as crucial port infrastructure.