Russia’s naval fleet has reportedly suffered tremendous losses in Ukraine and now resorts to submarines to continue patrolling the Black Sea. Speaking on national television, Kyiv’s Southern Defense Forces spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said the invading forces have recently begun a practice where their submarines rotate in the morning. “In the Azov-Black Sea region, they have four submarines, three of which are cruise missile carriers. Two submarines periodically go to sea,” he disclosed. This as the Ukrainian military claimed to have destroyed 30 percent of Moscow’s Black Sea fleet by the end of 2023. Earlier this year, Kyiv’s Magura V5 naval drones struck four Russian patrol boats in Crimea, completely destroying two and damaging the other two.
Apart from deploying submarines, Russia has also reportedly organized training for ships in the Sea of Azov connected to the Black Sea. They have also constructed barge-like structures to protect the Russian landing ships and Buyan-M project small missile vessels stationed in the area. Pletenchuk said the invading forces consider the territory safer against increasing Ukrainian drone attacks. However, the spokesperson noted that the shallow Sea of Azov limits Russian naval operations.
In February 2024, Pletenchuk estimated that the Russian Navy had about 80 warships deployed to support its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the war-torn nation has inflicted heavy damage in over two years of war, including in March 2022 when it sank a large Alligator-class amphibious landing ship using a Soviet Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile. The following month, Ukraine struck a significant blow on Russia’s Black Sea fleet when it targeted and destroyed the flagship guided missile cruiser, Moskva. The incident reportedly marked the first time a Russian flagship was sunk by an enemy since the early 1900s during the Russo-Japanese War. But among the most notable losses in Moscow’s naval fleet was the Rostov-on-Don, which “suffered catastrophic damages” when it was hit by a Ukrainian strike in September 2023.
