Kremlin replaces navy chief after Kyiv’s success in the Black Sea
Admiral Yevmenov moved aside after Ukraine’s much smaller navy forces Russia to relocate its warships
RUSSIA appears to have sacked its top naval commander after a series of humiliating setbacks in the Black Sea where its warships have been pounded by Ukrainian drones and missiles.
Two Russian news sources said that Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the Russian navy’s commander-in-chief since May 2019, had been replaced by Admiral Alexander Moiseev, who trained as a submariner under the Soviet Union. In 1998, he was credited with firing the first commercial micro-satellites into space from a nuclear-powered submarine he commanded.
Izvestia, a Moscow-based newspaper linked to the Kremlin, and Fontaka, a St Petersburg news agency, quoted unnamed sources confirming the change of command at the top of the St Petersburg-based Russian navy. Neither the Russian ministry of defence nor the Kremlin has commented. Unusually, too, Kremlin-linked Russian military bloggers have not yet confirmed the change of leadership.
Russia’s navy has been heavily criticised during the war for being unable to defeat the far smaller Ukrainian navy. It has been virtually chased off the occupied Crimean peninsula after Ukrainian drone and missile strikes destroyed several warships and submarines and has started to build a new base for its Black Sea fleet in a pro-russia breakaway region of Georgia roughly 380 miles from Ukraine. This week, Ukrainian intelligence said that one of its drones sank a Russian patrol ship, killing seven sailors. Last month, Russia sacked its Black Sea Fleet commander for the third time since the start of the war.
Admiral Moiseev has been commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet, based in the Arctic since 2019. He served as head of the Kremlin’s Black Sea Fleet from 2018.
Vladimir Putin is notorious for tinkering with personnel appointments. He has changed his military commander in Ukraine four times since his forces invaded in February 2022.
Although it has been humiliated in the Black Sea, Russia’s army is advancing along the frontline in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Russian military bloggers have claimed that the Kremlin’s forces were making gains across the frontline, although Ukrainian forces were resisting in villages around Chasiv Yar, to the west of Bakhmut.
“In Kleshcheevka they report the advance of our troops. At the same time, they note that the Ukrainian armed forces soldiers are showing staunch resistance,” the Two Majors channel quoted Russian soldiers as saying.
Ukraine has been criticised for not preparing defences when it launched its counteroffensive in the summer.
The British Ministry of Defence said yesterday that they were digging trenches, laying minefields, building defence positions and setting up tank traps. “The expansion of the defensive lines will reduce Russia’s ability to advance or exploit tactical gains,” it said.
CNN and The New York Times have claimed the US fears Russia may use a tactical nuclear bomb on the battlefield for the first time and has been “preparing rigorously” for a response.