Ukraine, in the Battle of the Black Sea but Without a Navy of Its Own, Forces Russia’s Fleet to Retreat

Russia, in what amounts to a retreat as it tries to get out of range of Ukrainian cruise missiles and sea drones, will build a permanent base for its Black Sea Fleet on the coast of Abkhazia, a strip of Georgia 500 miles east of Crimea. The self-styled president of Abkhazia, Aslan Bzhania, made the announcement today, one day after meeting President Putin at Moscow. The new base will be built at Ochamchira, a crumbling, former Soviet-era resort town, with none of the natural defenses of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.The news comes after at least 10 Russian warships recently abandoned Sevastopol, the main base for the Black Sea Fleet since 1783. Analysis of satellite photos released this week shows that since Saturday Russia moved two-thirds of its warships to the comparative safety of Novorossiysk, a major port on Russia’s mainland, from Sevastopol. These include two frigates, three diesel submarines, five landing ships, and several small missile ships.Russia moved its warships 250 miles to the east “likely in an effort to protect them from continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian assets in occupied Crimea” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reports. At the same time, satellite photos show that eastern Crimea’s Feodosia port has received new warships and new security. The harbor now is protected by steel nets and barges.“Russian forces,” the Institute suggests, “may” be moving elements of the Black Sea Fleet “away from Sevastopol to bases further in the Russian rear.”Britain’s minister for the armed forces, James Heappey, calls the move “the functional defeat of the Black Sea Fleet.” Speaking Tuesday at a security conference at Warsaw, he said: “The fleet has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine.”The impact can be seen in the western half of the Black Sea, where Russian navy warships no longer venture far beyond Crimea’s western coast. With this military threat easing, more and more civilian cargo ships are using a Ukrainian “safe corridor.”This water route hugs the coastline between Odessa and Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait. Three countries in the Western Black Sea are NATO members — Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania.As confidence grows, 12 grain ships are entering the corridor and 10 are leaving, a spokesman of the Ukraine navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk, told reporters Wednesday. Due to Russia’s blockade last summer, Ukraine’s grain exports are down by a quarter from last year.Britain, which flies maritime reconnaissance patrols over the Western Black Sea, warns that Russia may sow sea mines in an attempt to scare civilian ship captains away from the corridor.“Russia almost certainly wants to avoid openly sinking civilian ships, instead falsely laying blame on Ukraine for any attacks against civilian vessels in the Black Sea,” Britain’s Foreign Office said Wednesday in a statement. “By releasing our assessment of this intelligence, the UK seeks to expose Russia’s tactics to deter any such incident from occurring.”Last month, Britain accused Russia’s Black Sea Fleet of firing two Kalibr missiles at a civilian grain ship berthed at Odessa. Ukrainian air defenses downed both missiles. “Thanks to declassified intelligence, we know the Russian military targeted a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea with multiple missiles on the 24th of August,” Prime Minister Sunak told Britain’s parliament.Without a real navy of its own, Ukraine defeated Russia’s navy with domestically produced drones and imported cruise missiles. Over the last 18 months, Ukraine sank the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva; liberated Snake Island, a strategic rock near the mouth of the Danube River; and recaptured two offshore oil platforms that Russia used as a radar picket line.Moving to land, air drones and cruise missiles took out Russian air defense sites at northwestern Crimea, facing Ukraine’s mainland. Then, using a combination of drones and British cruise missiles, Ukraine blew up the headquarters building of the Black Sea Fleet and severely damaged two warships at Sevastopol’s dry dock. The dry dock, the fleet’s only one in the region, is now out of commission.From a tsarist-era port, Russian Black Sea warships may soon drop anchor in Ochamchira, a tattered beach resort that time forgot. Near the end of the rail line from Sochi, the town has seen its population dwindle to 5,000 from 20,000 in 1989. Situated on the mouth of the 30-mile-long Ghalidzga River, Ochamchira needs major dredging to accommodate Russian warships. Georgia lost control of Abkhazia 30 years ago, but today its foreign ministry denounced the navy base project as “a flagrant violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”Western analysts see this as an ignominious step down for the once storied Black Sea Fleet. “So much winning by Putin,” a Bluebay Eastern Europe analyst, Timothy Ash, writes from London. “Lost Crimea as safe base for BSF.”In an essay headlined “Putin’s Fleet Retreats: Ukraine is Winning the Battle of the Black Sea,” the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine editor, Peter Dickinson, writes: “By striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and sites in Crimea, Kyiv hopes to end the naval blockade of its ports and to disrupt the resupply of Putin’s army in southern Ukraine.” Writing from Kyiv, he concludes: “Ukraine’s success in the Battle of the Black Sea is all the more remarkable as the country does not currently have a functioning navy.”

Ukraine, in the Battle of the Black Sea but Without a Navy of Its Own, Forces Russia’s Fleet to Retreat

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