Ukraine said on Tuesday that it had badly damaged or sunk the Russian ship Sergei Kotov. It is the latest blow to Russia's Black Sea fleet, which has suffered heavy losses during the war.
Ukrainian The armed forces said early Tuesday morning that they had badly damaged or sunk the Russian patrol vessel Sergei Kotov in the waters of the Kerch Strait in the Black Sea.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine published on its Facebook page a video of a drone strike against Sergei Kotov. According to military intelligence, several Russian marines were killed and wounded in the attack.
It is the latest blow to Russia's Black Sea fleet, which has suffered heavy losses in two years of full-scale war. If only the damage or sinking of Russian ships that have been confirmed in some way are taken into account, Ukraine has succeeded in destroying 20 Russian surface ships and one submarine.
There may have been more losses for the fleet. For example, a British magazine The Economist reported in mid-February, without citing his source, that Russia's losses were 25 destroyed and 15 damaged ships.
Black Sea before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the navy had more than 80 ships on its books and decks. The chapter includes both surface ships and submarines. In addition, there are a few old ships whose condition of use is unknown.
In other words, the navy has lost, depending on the estimate, 25-50 percent of its floating equipment. The destruction was caused by the western neighbor Ukraine, which does not have its own navy at all.
Russian naval equipment has been destroyed by artillery, anti-tank weapons and missiles. During the past year, however, the most losses have been caused by Ukrainian Maruga V5 drones. The five-and-a-half-meter-long remote-controlled vessel is capable of carrying a 320-kilogram explosive load to a distance of about 800 kilometers.
Marugas have often struck in flocks, and skillfully. This was done, for example, at the beginning of February, when sea drones swam to the inner bay of Donuzlav on the west coast of Crimea. The locals, however, speak of Donuzlav as a lake, because the wedge separating the bay from the sea was pierced during the construction of the naval port in 1961.
Ukrainian sea drones swam in through a channel opening a couple of hundred meters wide and destroyed the Roputsha-class landing craft in the port of Tsezar Kunikov. It was already the fourth 112-meter landing craft of the same ship class destroyed by Ukraine. These are capable of transporting 300–400 marines in addition to twenty tanks. Or they could if they hadn't sunk.
Ukraine has not wasted its weapons or ammunition, but has chosen primarily new and expensive warships as targets. The oldest destroyed ship seems to be the large landing craft Saratov, which was launched in 1966. It burned down in a Ukrainian missile attack in the port of Berdyansk already in March 2022.
A month after this, Ukraine made its most spectacular naval attack by damaging the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, Moskva, in the waters of Käärmesaari, so that the ship finally sank.
Ukraine reaped significant fame last September when its Su-24s managed to destroy both the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-na-Donu and the Roputsha-class landing craft in the famous Sevastopol military port of Minsk.
Just over a week later, Ukraine attacked the naval headquarters in Sevastopol with Storm Shadow missiles, claiming the death of at least two high-ranking officers. Fleet Commander Viktor Sokolov was rumored to be dead at the time.
Judging by everything, Sokolov survived, however, because Russian Telegram channels follow the war told in mid-February, the commander was fired. The departure passes came after Ukraine had destroyed the fourth Roputsha-class ship.
American newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported after the September attacks that Russia has moved the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet and much of the fleet's ships to Novorossiysk on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.
The news was so embarrassing for Russia that Moscow opposed the proposed move to Novorossiysk for years and paid rent to Ukraine for Sevastopol before annexing Crimea in 2014.
“This is the operational loss of the Black Sea Fleet, because the fleet has been forced to withdraw to ports from which it is not possible to influence Ukraine,” commented the British Deputy Minister of Defense James Heappey at the security conference in Warsaw of the Atlantic Council research institute Ukraine Alert – according to the publication.
“This is [Ukrainalle] a huge achievement.”
Monday's based on the satellite images, there were only a few new-looking warships in the Sevastopol bay, even those that had been moved to shelter behind their old service brothers. It is estimated that there were slightly more ships in the Novorossiisk military port.
Ships have apparently been stationed elsewhere as well, because Novorossiisk is not a safe place for Russian ships either. A suspected Ukrainian maritime drone strike badly damaged the landing ship Olenogorski Gornjak off the port of Novorossiysk last August.
Bringing new warships to the Black Sea is not possible, because Turkey, which controls the Bosphorus, cannot allow them through.
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