9/24/2023 0 Comments Black navy war flagship![]() Then, on April 13, a Ukrainian navy anti-ship battery put two Neptune missiles into the side of the Russian cruiser Moskva, eventually sinking the 612-foot vessel. The explosion sank Saratov, damaged at least one other landing ship and underscored the danger Russian ships might face in a direct assault on Odesa. The tide began to turn on March 23, when a Ukrainian Tochka ballistic missile hit the Black Sea Fleet landing ship Saratov while she was pierside in the occupied port of Berdyansk. When the Ukrainians struck back, they did so with land-based missiles, UAVs and USVs. Russian forces meanwhile captured or scattered the rest of the Ukrainian navy’s ships, including one landing ship and a clutch of armored patrol boats. Capturing the port would complete Russia’s conquest of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and cut off the country from the sea, permanently strangling its economy. The Black Sea Fleet was poised to attempt an amphibious landing around Odesa. Sailing and flying with impunity, they captured tiny Snake Island, 80 miles south of Odesa, and-using the island plus some gas platforms they’d captured from Ukraine as bases for air-defenses and surveillance gear-enforced a blockade of Odesa that effectively cut off Ukraine’s vital grain exports. In the early hours of the initial Russian bombardment on February 23, the crew of Hetman Sahaidachny, the Ukrainian navy’s flagship and only large surface combatant, scuttled the frigate at its moorings in Odesa, Ukraine’s strategic port on the western Black Sea.įor the first two months of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, the Russians dominated the Black Sea. The Ukrainian navy has been shockingly successful, considering it no longer has any big ships. And to avoid future USV attacks, the Russians either will have to devote significantly more resources to protecting Sevastopol, or pull the Black Sea Fleet’s three dozen or so surviving vessels from Crimea. There are reports of other Black Sea Fleet ships suffering damage in the raid. Even if Makarov remains afloat-and that’s a distinct possibility-the Ukrainians still can count the nighttime strike as a win. ![]()
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