new snub for the Russian navy which loses a ship in the Black Sea

Is the Russian Navy losing its predominance in the Black Sea? In any case, “it only shrinks“, said Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk. While Moscow boasted of having conquered the town of Marinka in the east of the country on land, kyiv announced that it had once again destroyed a vessel from the Russian fleet in Crimea. Ukrainian President Volydmyr Zelensky ironically thanked the work of his armed forces “for the impressive addition of a new ship to the Russian submarine fleet in the Black Sea“. Even though the Ukrainian navy, which only has a few patrol boats, has been reduced to nothing since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian naval forces, harassed by drones and missiles , have suffered setbacks in recent months in the battle of the Black Sea.

This time, the Ukrainian Air Force announced on Tuesday that it had destroyed “the large landing ship Novocherkassk”, which was stationed in the port town of Feodosia, an important port on the Crimean peninsula, 100 kilometers west of the Kerch Bridge and 150 kilometers east of the large Russian naval base at Sevastopol. The vessel was suspected, according to kyiv, of carrying Iranian drones that Russia uses in the war against Ukraine. “People say he was carrying Shaheds“, affirmed the air force. Still according to her, the operation would have been carried out by “tactical aviation» with cruise missiles, in the middle of the night around 2:30 a.m. Mykola Olechchouk welcomed the operation, relaying a video on Telegram showing a large explosion.

Still according to her, the operation would have been carried out by “tactical aviation» with cruise missiles, in the middle of the night around 2:30 a.m. Mykola Olechchouk welcomed the operation, relaying a video on Telegram showing a large explosion.

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Vessel Novocherkassk was indeed damaged during the night, admitted Moscow, quoted by the Russian press agency Interfax. During the attack, Russian anti-aircraft defenses reportedly shot down two Ukrainian Su-24 planes, Russian authorities also claimed. President Vladimir Putin was informed by his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to “damage» suffered by the large landing ship NovocherkasskKremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told the press.

Loaded with missiles

The head of theRepublic of Crimea», Sergei Aksionov, specified that the Ukrainian attack had left one dead and two injured and damaged six buildings. “The port area is cordoned off“, indicated the Russian official on Telegram, assuring that “the detonation has ended” and “the fire is contained“.

This attack is a new snub for the Russian Black Sea fleet, certainly modest in absolute terms, but which, on paper, has total superiority compared to that of kyiv, almost reduced to nothing. Above all, on the operational level, the probable destruction of the Novocherkassk poses a serious challenge to Moscow. Certainly old (1987), this military transport ship plays like its sister ships of style Ropucha a major logistical role in supplying Russian forces in Ukraine, particularly as land routes are subject to Ukrainian fire. Already attacked several times and even slightly damaged, the Kerch bridge, linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia in the strait of the same name, is notably a valuable but vulnerable asset for Moscow.

However, since the start of the war, it is the Russian amphibious fleet that has been most affected by Ukrainian strikes. The Russian Navy currently has 13 Ropucha (counting the Novocherkassk), 3 Alligator even older and only 2 Ivan Gren both more modern and more imposing. But this fleet has suffered from strong attrition since February 24, 2022. In addition to the Novocherkaask3 Ropucha were damaged in almost two years of war during various attacks. In particular, the Minsk was heavily hit by Ukrainian cruise missiles in Sevastopol on September 13. It is far from certain that it will ever be able to return to sea, and even if that were to be the case, its repair would take at least many months.

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Above all, Russian naval repair capacities in the Black Sea, already modest before the war, are also affected by the Ukrainian attacks, making the issue all the more thorny for Moscow. A AlligatorTHE Saratovwas also destroyed by a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile at the start of the war, on March 24, 2022, in the port of Berdyansk, bringing the number of large Russian landing ships hit or destroyed by the Ukrainians to five.

By coincidence, last week, before the attack, Vladimir Putin announced the construction of seven new large landing ships Ivan Gren-Ma heavily modernized version – including ample space for helicopters – of both Ivan Gren currently deployed off the coast of Ukraine. Two Ivan Gren-M are already under construction in Saint Petersburg and should be launched in 2024. Since 2020, Russia has also been building two helicopter carriers Ivan Rogov in the Crimean shipyard of Zaliv in Kerch in Crimea.

Risk of capacity gap

These are the first Russian aircraft carriers laid down since the fall of the USSR, intended to replace the two Mistral French whose sale was canceled by Paris in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. But their construction is also threatened by the war in Ukraine. On November 4, 2023, this shipyard in the Black Sea was targeted by a Ukrainian missile attack. And even if Russian air defense managed to ward off the threat for long enough, these 15 recent ships or ships under construction will not be completed before 2035, explains on X the Russian navy specialist, Benjamin Gravisse, author of the specialized blog Red Samovar. In the relatively short term, the Russian navy therefore risks suffering from a capability void if its amphibious fleet continues to experience such attrition.

By comparison, the rest of the Russian navy in the Pontic Basin appears less threatened, despite the increase in Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. True, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moscow, was sent to the bottom in April 2022 by a Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missile. The symbolic shock was terrible because it was an imposing ship with a displacement of 12,000 tons (compared to the 2,200 to 4,000 tons of the Novocherkassk). But, operationally, this class cruiser Slava, commissioned in 1982, was largely obsolete. Failing to undergo a heavy modernization lasting several years, which would have made little sense on a military level given its advanced age – 40 years! -, it should have been withdrawn from active service shortly, except to serve as a simple standard for Moscow’s prestige and naval diplomacy.

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In contrast, so far the main combat ships of the Black Sea Fleet – three frigates Admiral Grigorovich – were spared. As of February 2022, the top two losses have been to a class diesel-electric attack submarine Kilo-M THE Rostov-on-Doncommissioned in 2014, and a class light corvette KarakurtL’Askold, which was completing its sea trials before entering service. These two ships were both carrying Kalibr cruise missiles, whose range – more than 2000 kilometers – allows the Russians to strike all of Ukrainian territory. This loss is certainly significant, but, for the moment, Moscow does not lack missile launchers. Since 2022, five other missile corvettes have been commissioned into the Russian Navy (including two in the Black Sea). Several dozen ships and submarines are also under construction in various Russian shipyards, most of them far from the Ukrainian battlefield.

On December 25, Vladimir Putin inaugurated a frigate Gorshkov in the Northern Fleet, the most modern class of ships Russia possesses. To date, of course, the Ukrainians are exerting strong pressure on the Russian navy, but the attrition they are imposing on the Russians is less than Moscow’s capacity to replenish its naval forces, except, perhaps, in terms of amphibious where the situation appears particularly worrying for the Russians.