Planet Lab / M_T_Anderson
A satellite image of the Novorossiysk naval base in the Black Sea intrigues naval specialists. Two submarines appear submerged in the harbor.
Faced with Ukrainian missiles and drones, do Russian submarines remain underwater, even when in port? This is the hypothesis put forward this Saturday on Novorossiysk taken on May 17. It is there, to the east of Crimea, that the majority of Russian ships took refuge, too vulnerable in the historic port of Sevastopol.
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But, looking closer, Osint specialists (open source information, Editor’s note), including the account @M_T_Anderson, found two submarines… lying on the bottom of the harbor. Even if they are submerged, we can indeed recognize the general shape of the two buildings which thus appear between two waters. Only the submarine kiosk is clearly visible.
Camouflage
“It would be a very interesting sign if, indeed, two Russian submarines were placed on the bottom of the Novorossiysk harbor, in order to protect them from some proven threats”, notes Thibault Lamidel, author of the renowned blog “Le Fauteuil de Colbert”. Given the shallow depth at which the two buildings lie, one can nevertheless doubt the effectiveness of such a method: it is unlikely that it will protect them from a powerful missile strike. Is it in the hypothesis that surface drones, whose explosive charge is lower, would manage to enter the harbor? Or simply for the sake of discretion?
Since the destruction in April 2022 of the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moscow, the Ukrainians harass the Russian navy in the Pontic space. Anti-ship missiles and surface drones are the two main vectors of this asymmetric strategy which has already allowed kyiv to hit at least 20% of the ships affected in this region. In particular, in September 2023, a Storm Shadow missile strike severely damaged one of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s six Kilo-M submarines while it was in dry dock for repairs in Sevastopol. According to the Russian authorities, the ship can be restored this year, but doubt remains about the possibility of such a reconstruction in such a short time.
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The Kilo-M submarines, relatively modern since they were put into service between 2014 and 2016, play a notable role in the war since they carry Kalibr cruise missiles used to strike Ukraine in the depths. These weapons have a range of more than 2000 kilometers. The Black Sea Fleet also has frigates and corvettes equipped with such missiles. Already, for several months, the hull of some of these surface ships has been partially repainted black to modify their silhouette and thus deceive enemy drones and missiles.
The Russians therefore seem to have taken the art of camouflage even underwater. Russian submariners, who already rarely touch land, are forced to live even longer below the surface, even at dock.