Ukraine strikes continuously, threatening Russia's naval power in the Black Sea 0
(Dan Tri) – Ukraine’s announcement that it continues to sink a warship shows Kiev’s efforts to weaken Russia’s naval power in the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s unmanned boat (Photo: Kyiv Post).
Ukraine may be having difficulty countering Russia’s strong advances on the battlefield, but Kiev appears to continue to achieve surprising results in its campaign to deal with Moscow in the Black Sea.
On February 14, Ukrainian military intelligence announced the use of a navy unmanned boat to sink the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov near the Crimean peninsula.
Video of the nighttime attack shows the unmanned boat rushing towards the Russian warship, after which a large cloud of smoke rose from the ship.
If confirmed, the sinking of the Caesar Kunikov would mark the 25th in a series of attacks on Russian warships.
Although Ukraine’s navy is inferior to Russia’s, Kiev continues to attack Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, as well as the center of Russia’s naval power in the Black Sea, the port of Sevastopol in Crimea.
One of Ukraine’s most notable attacks occurred in April 2022, just 2 months after the conflict began, when Kiev announced it had sunk the Moskva, Russia’s flagship in the Black Sea.
Last June, in attacks on Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet is headquartered, Ukraine is said to have seriously damaged a Rostov-on-Don submarine and a Minsk landing ship.
Black Sea location in southern Ukraine (Photo: US Department of Defense).
Military analysts say Ukraine can confront Russia’s naval power through innovation and boldness.
Ukraine’s testing of unmanned boats at sea – loaded with explosives and guided remotely to targets – made the country the first country in history to effectively deploy unmanned boats in war.
Unmanned boats are relatively cheap and do not have a crew at the controls.
The corvette Ivanovets, believed to have been sunk last month, caused Russia to lose about $70 million, according to Business Insider.
This gives Ukraine a `huge advantage`, said Basil Germond, an expert on international security at Lancaster University in the UK.
The range of unmanned boats also exceeds that of cruise missiles, and Ukraine is rapidly introducing innovations such as equipping boats with missile launchers.
While cruise missiles such as Storm Shadow and Harpoon supplied by Britain and France have been used by Ukraine to attack Russian ships, they can only be fired from a certain distance.
`Ukraine was very successful in fighting the Black Sea Fleet, forcing Russia to move assets away from Ukraine and the front line. This has operational significance but is also symbolic,` said expert Germond.
Michael Kofman, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment, said that Ukraine’s successful advances in the Black Sea are not a solution to Kiev’s stalled ground offensive.
According to experts, although Ukraine will not be able to secure victory over Russia through daring naval operations alone, attacks play an important role in maintaining pressure, in a variety of ways.
That means Russia must reallocate some of its fleet from Sevastopol to less well-equipped ports such as Feodosia, in eastern Crimea, and Novorossiysk, on the Russian coast.
Sidharth Kaushal, a naval expert at Britain’s Royal Institute of Defense and Security Studies, said that Russia can still continue its offensive operations at sea, but it is having difficulty continuing to `suffocate the
`Russia’s blockade of Ukraine is no longer trustworthy,` said expert Germond.
Russia also faces the problem of equipment wear and tear after Ukraine’s attacks.
This means that any sunken ships will lead to the long-term decline of the Black Sea Fleet.
`Warships are the most expensive military assets in a country’s arsenal,` said expert Germond.
Another important impact concerns the morale of ground forces, both for Ukraine and Russia, Germond said.
