Ukraine turns the tables on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, saying “They miscalculated.”
Ukraine’s Kyiv – The saying from the early stages of the Russia-Ukrainian war, “Russian warship, go f*** yourself!” has become the subject of innumerable memes and bumper stickers.
It is how Ukrainian service members stationed on the Black Sea’s Zmiiny Island, also known as Snake Island, responded to a Russian warship’s plea for surrender.
However, by the beginning of 2022, it appeared that the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is based in the annexation of Crimea, had achieved complete authority over Ukraine’s territorial seas in the Black Sea and its smaller, shallower sibling, the Sea of Azov.
Its larger ships used missiles and drones to bombard Odesa, Ukraine’s principal seaport, and other southern cities, killing civilians and obliterating residential structures, military facilities, and port infrastructure.
Smaller Russian navy ships made port calls and conducted official inspections of merchant ships transporting grain and sunflower oil, two of Ukraine’s major commodities.
The Russian navy felt at peace throughout the whole northern Black Sea, but after nearly 600 days of combat, the situation has changed.
Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, a former deputy chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, told Al Jazeera that “they miscalculated.” “Until we completely de-occupy our lands, we won’t let them rest and we won’t rest ourselves.”
Escape from Sevastopol
At least a dozen Russian vessels, including guided missile frigates, landing ships, and submarines, have apparently been rapidly moved from their main base in Sevastopol, a subtropical port in seized Crimea. This is evident from satellite photography.
The majority were relocated to Novorossiisk, a Russian port more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Sevastopol, or to other, more compact bases or bays in eastern Crimea or along Russia’s Black Sea coast.
The liberation of Kharkiv Oblast one year ago was equated to the “functional defeat of the Black Sea Fleet” by British Defense Minister James Heappey.
On Tuesday, he said that “the fleet has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine.”
The move was made in response to a string of audacious Ukrainian strikes using Western-made cruise missiles and drones made domestically that destroyed flagships, smaller cutters, and even a moored submarine.
Additionally, they destroyed two cutting-edge S-400 air defense systems, leaving significant “holes” in the skies over Crimea.
Furthermore, they destroyed a dry dock that was necessary for maintaining Russian ships that were more than 20 years old, which is the most significant damage.
Ihar Tyshkevich, a Kyiv-based analyst, told Al Jazeera that damage to the shipyard rather than to the vessels was crucial for Russia. This is the rationale behind the substantial relocation of the Black Sea fleet vessels to Novorossiisk.
Kyiv bombarded and partially destroyed the Fleet’s headquarters in a gleaming white Stalinist structure in Sevastopol on September 22.
Getting back the western Black Sea
According to observers, the attacks significantly lowered Russia’s ability to support occupying forces in Kherson’s southern region by deploying soldiers close to Odessa.
According to retired US Army Major General Gordon Skip Davis Jr., “Ukraine’s actions have wrested control of Ukraine’s western territorial waters back from Russia and prevented the Black Sea Fleet from threatening Odesa with amphibious assault or providing tactical fires and logistical support to Russian forces in Kherson.”
Given that Ukraine’s tiny navy lost the majority of its ships following the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and consists of two dozen outdated ships that can all fit into a small bay, the feat looks even more astounding.
Russian sailors that were inspecting grain ships with Ukrainian grain were discouraged by the potential for future sea drone attacks.
According to analyst Tyshkevich, Russian ships “can defend themselves with a relative effect only if there’s a group of vessels” and inspections “make logistical sense only if carried out by individual ships.”
However, nowadays, Romanian ports on the Danube, a gateway to Eastern and Central Europe, are preferred by Ukrainian and foreign shipping corporations over using smaller vessels that may travel along the Black Sea coast.
However, “the Danube ports are not deep, a Panamax ship [with a tonnage of more than 50,000] won’t enter them, and the cargo needs to be reloaded either at sea or in other ports,” analyst Aleksey Kushch, who is based in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
As a result, only 20 vessels leaving the Odesa port each month carrying around 100,000 tonnes of wheat reduced the port’s overall capacity by a factor of ten, according to him.
that might have been Ukrainian fleet
The irony is that, except for the early leaders’ pacifism and Ukraine’s poor economic circumstances in the 1990s, the entire Black Sea fleet may have been Ukrainian.
The fleet, which was established in Sevastopol in 1783, engaged NATO frequently in the Mediterranean and prevailed in naval conflicts with Ottoman Turkey and Nazi Germany.
On August 24, 1991, Ukraine proclaimed its independence. A few days later, Moscow named Admiral Igor Kasatonov as the commander of the enormous fleet, which had 833 vessels and hundreds of planes and employed 100,000 service members and 60,000 auxiliary personnel.
It received reports from Soviet naval outposts in Syria and Libya as well as stations in what is now Russia, Moldova, and Georgia.
Early in 1992, according to a witness, Kasatonov traveled to Kyiv to meet Leonid Kravchuk, the country’s first post-Soviet president, and swear allegiance to the Ukrainian capital.
However, the meeting was unsuccessful, and he left it “absolutely crazy,” according to photographer Efrem Lukatsky, who spoke to Al Jazeera.
He stated that Kravchuk, it turned out, didn’t need the Fleet as he started to “spill his guts to me.”
When Kasatonov swore allegiance to Russia on January 4, 1992, it seemed rational because Ukraine could not pay to keep the navy.
As idle ships rusted away and were frequently sold for scrap metal, Moscow and Kyiv made the decision to jointly manage the fleet.
Even Colombian criminal cartels were allegedly able to purchase a miniature submarine for the purpose of carrying cocaine.
Moscow and Kiev only divided the fleet quite unevenly in 1997.
30 warships and cutters, one submarine, 34 support ships, and 90 aircraft are available to Kiev.
Moscow acquired 338 warships, 106 aircraft, and many sites in and around Sevastopol, as well as other locations in Crimea, which it committed to lease.
The fleet continued to be Sevastopol’s greatest job, and the lease cost Russia over $100 million a year.
Since the deportations of Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians by the Stalinist regime in 1944, Moscow has relocated hundreds of thousands of people of ethnic Russian descent to the peninsula.
They persistently fought Kyiv’s efforts to establish Ukrainian as the language of government and education, remaining mostly loyal to Moscow.
Politically, they were close to the Communist-supporting “red belt” regions of Russia.
“Ukrainian Crimea mentally was a total part of it,” Sergey Biziykin, a wanted Russian opposition activist who visited Crimea in the early 2000s, told Al Jazeera.
As cash-strapped Kyiv chose not to invest in the aging infrastructure of the peninsula, Kremlin-controlled media readily available in Crimea converted its citizens’ pro-Communist inclinations into devotion to Russia generally.
Valentina Minina, a pro-Moscow demonstrator in Sevastopol brandishing a Russian flag, told this reporter just days before the March 16, 2014 “referendum” that announced the annexation of Crimea, “They ignore us, they see us as a place for cheap vacations.” Because Russia respects us and will make things right here, we want to be with them.