A dry dock burns in Sevastopol.
Via social media
We do not know how Ukrainian forces attacked the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, 150 miles south of the Ukrainian front line.
They may have secretly smuggled some of their explosives-laden drone ships into the heavily defended port. Maybe they fired a ballistic missile or a cruise missile. Maybe saboteurs sneaked into Sevastopol.
For the beleaguered Russian Black Sea Fleet, how doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is fighting the fires that raged in a dry dock that exploded early Wednesday morning. A dry dock supposedly containing two warships: a Ropucha-class amphibious assault ship and a Kilo-class submarine.
If the Russians can’t put out the fires quickly, the Black Sea Fleet could lose two more of its roughly 30 large ships – ships it won’t be able to replace until Russia’s broader war against Ukraine ends and Turkey regains the Bosphorus that connects the strait opens Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
The Black Sea Fleet is in a very difficult war. A nighttime drone strike on the Olenegorsky Gornyak landing ship in Novorossiysk, a port in southern Russia just 70 miles east of Russian-occupied Crimea, brought to four the number of large Black Sea Fleet warships that the Ukrainian Navy has definitively put out of action.
Losses include the landing ship Saratov, which was hit by a ballistic missile in March 2022; the cruiser Moskva, which was hit by an anti-ship missile the following month; the rescue ship Vasily Bekh, another victim of an anti-ship missile; and then Olenegorsky Gornyak, who entered a dry dock just days after the Ukrainian attack – and may have left the war for good.
The Ukrainians have also sunk or severely damaged several Russian patrol boats and landing craft – and also recently drove Russian troops away from two captured Ukrainian oil platforms that the Russians had been using as naval outposts in the western Black Sea.
The sinkings and raids are a remarkable achievement for a Ukrainian fleet that, after sinking its only frigate in the early hours of the Russian invasion in February 2022, appears to have only one large ship left: an aging landing ship located in the Hiding near the mouth of the Dnipro River, it occasionally fired short-range missiles at Russian forces.
The Ukrainian Navy is now effectively a shipless navy, but no less dangerous because it does not have large hulls. With its locally manufactured Neptune anti-ship missiles and Western-made Harpoon ASMs, as well as its missile-armed TB-2 drones and disposable drone boats, the Ukrainian Navy is not only keeping the Russian Black Sea Fleet at bay, it is actively repelling the fleet.
Russian warships based in Crimea are constantly under attack; Ships in Russia have also been at risk since last month. When Russian warships leave port, they do so only for a short time – usually just long enough to fire a few cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities.
The security of the Russian fleet will get worse before it gets better. The number and variety of deep-strike weapons with which the Ukrainian armed forces can attack the fleet is constantly increasing.
Ukrainian industry is developing a new thousand-mile cruise missile; and US President Joe Biden’s administration has reportedly signaled it will donate ballistic missiles with a range of up to 190 miles to the Ukrainian army’s tactical missile system.
Any possible new weapon could hit Sevastopol from the Ukrainian side of the front. And the steady drumbeat of Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships is clear evidence that Ukrainian intelligence has no problem pinpointing the ships’ locations.
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