The Russian Black Sea Fleet can only operate to a limited extent in the Black Sea; it has lost a number of ships in recent months. Even without its own fleet, Ukraine is comparatively successful at sea.
In the first months of 2024, the Ukrainian army has experienced an extremely complicated situation on the ground. It must be considered a success that after the fall of the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk district, Ukraine is on the verge of stabilizing the situation on this section of the front. In general, however, Russia retains the strategic initiative and is likely to remain so for the time being. On the sea, however, things are different: With the “Sergei Kotov”, on March 5th, the Ukrainians sank the third ship in the Russian Black Sea Fleet since the beginning of February with the help of the self-developed Magura V5 maritime drone – even though such operations were not being carried out is currently quite difficult due to the weather and Kiev itself hardly has a functioning fleet.
Overall, the Ukrainian army has already at least significantly damaged more than a fifth of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Black Sea is certainly not the most important front in this war. At the latest since the Russians withdrew from the city of Kherson in November 2022, Russian fantasies of conquest for Mykolaiv and Odessa are likely to be off the table, at least as far as concrete plans are concerned. Without support on the mainland, an amphibious landing attempt in Odessa would probably be a suicide mission. But the Black Sea is anything but insignificant for Ukraine.
It wasn’t quite that easy
This applies to trade: before the major Russian attack in February 2022, the sea transport of goods accounted for around 60 percent of the total Ukrainian goods turnover. Before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ukraine had 18 ports on the Black and Azov Seas. After March 2014 there were actually 13. In the Sea of Azov, however, Russia repeatedly made attempts to make it more difficult for Ukrainian merchant ships to access the Kerch Strait towards ports such as Berdyansk and Mariupol.
However, the Black Sea and the so-called Great Odessa, a port network around the city, remained fully usable for the Ukrainians until around mid-2021, when Russia increased its presence in the northwestern part of the Black Sea under the official pretext of maneuvers. In the first hours of February 24, 2022, the Russians finally occupied Snake Island, a small island 40 kilometers off the Ukrainian coast. Control over Snake Island allows all maritime traffic from and to Ukraine to be controlled. For Kiev, the conquest of Snake Island was a huge loss.
But as early as February 2022, the leadership of the Russian naval forces had to realize that things in the Black Sea would not be as easy as they had probably imagined. Because Ukraine didn’t have any big ships. However, it already had several pilot copies of the Ukrainian anti-ship missile Neptune. The first missions at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia were not particularly successful, but they became the first warning sign to the Russians. Nevertheless, people in Moscow were probably quite surprised when an improved version of Neptune sank the cruiser “Moskva”, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, on April 13, 2022.
Ukrainian attacks paused during the grain deal
The Russians’ withdrawal from Snake Island was now only a matter of time. Two months later it was the case: the combination of the air force, the French howitzer Caesar and the Ukrainian wheeled howitzer Bohdana left the Russian forces no choice. The Russians withdrew to a distance of around 150 kilometers from the Ukrainian coast in order to fire the very long-range Kalibr cruise missile at Ukraine from a safe distance from their ships.
The war in the Black Sea is not just a naval war; it has direct consequences for the Ukrainian mainland. Nevertheless, active actions in the Black Sea were paused at the end of July 2022 because the so-called grain agreement was signed at that time. Until February 2023, the negotiated grain corridor was working relatively well. However, from March onwards it was sabotaged by Russia – and it became clear that the agreement would not be renewed. Clearly, the Ukrainian income from grain exports was not in Russia’s interest: In Ukraine, all tax and customs revenue currently flows to the military, while the civilian budget consists exclusively of foreign aid and loans.
Ukraine adhered to the grain agreement until it expired in July 2023. After that, the Russians were continuously shown their limits: with sea drones of the Sea Baby and Magura V5 classes, with the British Storm Shadow cruise missile and with landing attempts by the military intelligence service HUR on oil rigs that belong to Ukraine and had already been occupied and used by Russia in the course of the annexation of Crimea Reconnaissance radars had been equipped.
Black Sea Fleet cannot leave the Black Sea
Grain transport is now almost back to pre-war levels, even without an agreement. That’s why the blockades by Polish farmers on the Ukrainian border are not quite as dramatic. Another military success: the shelling of the Ukrainian mainland with Kalibr cruise missiles has decreased significantly. The reconnaissance activities of the Black Sea Fleet also became much more complicated. Russia has moved many ships from Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. There, too, there were successful attacks with Sea Baby drones.
Moving the entire fleet to Novorossiysk would be difficult or impossible, not only because of the peculiarities of the port there. Loading ships with cruise missiles is technically only possible in occupied Crimea. The same applies to some major maintenance work, especially since the ships are not allowed to leave the Black Sea because Turkey blocks passage through the Bosphorus for military ships in accordance with international law.
And so this war has become an embarrassment for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which originally wanted to land triumphantly in Odessa. For Ukraine, on the other hand, the military successes in the Black Sea are an example of the asymmetrical warfare it is aiming for, which is also urgently necessary in the defensive fight against the largest country in the world with superior resources.