'Afraid of everything': Russia's Black Sea Fleet hiding in port

KYIV -- Ukraine's attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol last month has forced Russian warships to hide in port, marking the latest setback for its navy.

A satellite image posted by H. I. Sutton, an independent open source analyst, on Saturday (November 12) showed no Russian naval warships operating outside the waters of Sevastopol.

"Russian Navy activity has decreased noticeably," he said on Twitter.

"This was unthinkable just a few weeks ago, no Russian warships are visible patrolling outside the port," Sutton wrote, adding that both Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates were in port.

Ukrainian forces launched uncrewed surface vessels and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs -- commonly referred to as drones) on October 29 to attack Sevastopol, reportedly damaging at least one Russian vessel.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said Ukraine used nine air and seven sea drones, several of which were intercepted.

Russian forces have since ramped up their defences at the port.

"The floating boom defences around the main warship quay have been pulled across in front of the line of warships, according to satellite imagery," Sutton wrote November 7 for USNI News.

"The refuelling piers, deeper inside the harbour, also have floating booms deployed. The use of these booms is still intermittent, but the Russians are deploying them more than they had previously."

"Certain coastal patrol areas, which have until now been under the jurisdiction of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, border guard, now appear to have Russian Navy vessels," he added.

"Missile corvettes have been seen patrolling where lighter-armed FSB patrol ships used to patrol, according to ship spotters."

'Afraid of everything'

Russia has already lost 16 ships in the war, according to the Ukrainian military, including the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva guided missile cruiser.

"I would no longer call what Russia has left in the Black Sea a fleet since a fleet includes a lead ship, but the lead ship missile cruiser Moskva... is currently at the bottom of the Black Sea," said Alexander Kovalenko of Kyiv, a military analyst for the website InfoResist.

"So it's more accurate to call this group the Black Sea Flotilla," he said, adding the sinking of the Moskva marked the first time in 40 years that a country has lost its flagship in conflict.

"At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Black Sea Fleet had the largest group of ships for landing operations in the Black Sea region," Kovalenko said.

"They could simultaneously send 3,500 to 4,500 commandos ashore during a landing operation, but not a single such large-scale operation ... was carried out."

"That is, the fleet did not exercise its landing capacity. And now it has completely lost control of the situation and all initiative," he said.

"They are afraid of everything. They are trying to bring ships with Kalibr cruise missiles onto open water less, since they believe these ships are the main target of uncrewed boats."

"In other words, they're afraid to bring ships that represent their most modern fleet into the open sea," said Kovalenko.

"In fact, today the Black Sea Fleet's entire function has been reduced to this task: launching missile strikes," he said. "The good news is that they are running out of missiles."

New tactics

The deployment of unmanned naval drones is the latest tactic developed by Ukrainian forces to fight against Russia's navy.

"We have gained combat capabilities, so we are squeezing their combat potential," said Andriy Ryzhenko, a former officer in the Ukrainian navy who now serves as an analyst with the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies.

"They even abandoned the idea of capturing Snake Island, because we repeatedly bombarded them with artillery," he said, referring to a key island off the coast of Ukraine that Russian forces held from February until June.

"And when we got anti-ship missiles and when we strengthened our positions near Mykolaiv in April, they abandoned other plans: for example, an amphibious landing at Odesa. Now it's too much of a gamble," said Ryzhenko.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on November 11 announced a fundraiser for a fleet of naval drones.

"We must defend the waters of our seas and peaceful cities from Russian missiles launched from ships," he wrote on the Facebook fundraiser announcement.

"Naval drones will also help unblock the corridor for civilian ships transporting grain for the world," he added.

"Russia launches every fifth missile from ships," Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on his official Telegram channel the same day, adding, "It's important to protect Ukrainian cities and waters from shelling as much as possible."

"That's why we are raising funds for 100 Ukrainian-made sea drones. They may significantly change the situation in the Black Sea."

"Small and fast, drones can successfully attack Russian ships worth hundreds of millions of dollars," he added.

"For 50 years, there has been this concept of an uncrewed ship with explosives that could be sent toward a target, a large ship, and sink it," said Ivan Kirichevsky of Kyiv, a military analyst at Defence Express, a consulting firm.

"Many countries have tried the idea, but only in 2022 did Ukraine become the first country to implement this concept of kamikaze drones, and this is very encouraging," he said.