Ukraine Just Blew Up Two Russian Warships In Their Drydock
We don’t know how Ukrainian forces struck the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea 150 miles south of the Ukraine front line.
Maybe they sneaked some of their explosives-laden drone vessels into the heavily-defended port. Maybe they fired a ballistic missile or a cruise missile. Maybe saboteurs sneaked into Sevastopol.
For the battered Russian Black Sea Fleet, how doesn’t really matter right now. What matters is fighting the fires raging across a drydock that exploded early Wednesday morning. A drydock that reportedly cradled two warships: a Ropucha-class amphibious vessel and a Kilo-class submarine.
If the Russians can’t put out the fires, and quickly, the Black Sea Fleet could lose two more of its roughly 30 large ships—ships it can’t replace until Russia’s wider war on Ukraine ends and Turkey reopens the Bosphorus Strait connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Black Sea Fleet is having a very difficult war. A nighttime drone-boat attack on the landing ship Olenegorsky Gornyak in Novorossiysk, a port in southern Russia just 70 miles east of Russian-occupied Crimea, brought to four the number of major Black Sea Fleet warships the Ukrainian navy definitely has put out of action.
The losses include the landing ship Saratov, blasted by a ballistic missile in March 2022; the cruiser Moskva, holed by an anti-ship missile the following month; the rescue ship Vasily Bekh, another victim of an anti-ship missile; and then Olenegorsky Gornyak, which entered a drydock a few days after the Ukrainian attack—and may be out of the war, for good.
The Ukrainians also have sank or badly damaged several Russian patrol boats and landing craft—and also recently ejected Russian forces from a pair of 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 feat for a Ukrainian fleet that, after scuttling its sole frigate in the early hours of the Russian invasion in February 2022, apparently has just one large ship left: an aging landing ship that has been hiding out near the mouth of the Dnipro River and occasionally lobbing short-range rockets at Russian forces.
The Ukrainian navy now effectively is a shipless navy, but no less dangerous for its lack of large hulls. Between its locally-made Neptune anti-ship missiles and Western-made Harpoon ASMs, as well as its missile-armed TB-2 drones and one-way drone boats, the Ukrainian navy isn’t just holding the Russian Black Sea Fleet at bay, it actively is beating back the fleet.
Russian warships staging from Crimea are under constant assault; as of last month, ships in Russia proper are at risk, too. When Russian warships leave port, they do so briefly—usually only long enough to launch a few cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities.
The Russian fleet’s security is going to get worse before it gets better. The number and variety of deep-strike weapons with which Ukrainian forces can attack the fleet steadily are growing.
Ukrainian industry is developing a new thousand-mile cruise missile; and the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden reportedly has signaled it will donate to Ukraine Army Tactical Missile System ballistic rockets that range as far as 190 miles.
Either prospective new weapon could hit Sevastopol from the Ukrainian side of the front line. And the steady drumbeat of Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships is clear evidence that Ukrainian intelligence has no problem pinpointing the ships’ locations.
Ukraine Just Blew Up Two Russian Warships In Their Drydock
Russia Had Five S-400 Air-Defense Batteries In Crimea. In Three Weeks, Ukraine Blew U
Russia Had Five S-400 Air-Defense Batteries In Crimea. In Three Weeks, Ukraine Blew Up Two.
In the years prior to its wider war on Ukraine, the Russian air force deployed five batteries of its best S-400 surface-to-air missiles, plus their radars, to occupied Crimea.
In less than a month, the Ukrainian navy has destroyed two of them. Every S-400 battery the Ukrainians knock out is one fewer S-400 battery defending the Russian Black Sea Fleet at its anchorage in Sevastopol.
The first raid on an S-400, on Aug. 23, targeted the battery in Cape Tarkhankut on the Crimean Peninsula’s northwest coast. The second, on Thursday, struck a battery 36 miles south in Yevpatoriya.
Both strikes reportedly involved the latest version of the Ukrainian navy’s Neptune ground-launched anti-ship cruise missile. The original model, with which the Ukrainians sank the Black Sea Fleet cruiser Moskva in April 2022, traveled 190 miles with a 330-pound warhead. The new version travels 225 miles with a 770-pound warhead.
Ukraine’s Luch Design Bureau from the outset designed the Neptune with a GPS-aided radar seeker. Basically, the missile navigates to GPS coordinates. Once it gets there, the radar looks for something shaped like a worthwhile target.
This combination of GPS and radar makes the Neptune equally adept at striking targets at sea and on land, although Luch officials have said they tweaked the guidance in the missile’s newer model. That could mean the addition of an infrared seeker.
In any event, the Neptune works. And so does the intelligence-gathering apparatus that feeds the navy targets for its Neptune batteries. Russian air-defenses, by contrast, don’t work—at least not against a low-flying cruise missile.
The S-400 is Russia’s best long-range SAM system. It’s supposed to shoot down missiles like the Neptune. Instead, it’s getting destroyed by the Neptune. And every missile raid makes the next raid more likely to succeed as the mutually-supporting network of radars and missiles collapses. “There may be systemic tactical failures with Russian air-defense systems in occupied Crimea,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. noted.
The Ukrainian navy’s short-term goal is obvious: to clear the way for the Ukrainian air force to strike the Black Sea Fleet in occupied Sevastopol. A barrage of British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, launched by air force Sukhoi Su-24 bombers on Wednesday, struck a drydock in Sevastopol and burned the two warships inside: a Ropucha-class landing ship and a Kilo-class submarine.
It’s unlikely the Ukrainians are done. The Black Sea Fleet still has a couple of dozen large warships left—and they’re no less vulnerable to air-launched cruise missiles than that Ropucha and Kilo were. And now there’s one less S-400 battery to protect the ships than there was on Wednesday.
The Russian air force may still have another three S-400 batteries in Crimea, plus additional batteries in reserve in Russia proper. But if the Russians shift the deployed batteries, or bring in fresh batteries, in the hope of plugging gaps in their air-defenses, these replacement batteries might just suffer the same fate as their predecessors. Plinked by Neptunes.
The Kremlin’s options aren’t great. In the 19 months of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, Ukrainian commanders steadily have built up a fearsome deep-strike complex, and now they’re using it to dismantle Russian forces in Crimea.
In the words of Ben Hodges, a retired U.S. Army general and the former commander of Army forces in Europe, “the Ukrainian general staff is running rings around the Russian general staff.”
Russia Had Five S-400 Batteries In Crimea. Ukraine Blew Up Two.
Meet the Belarusians who tricked Russia into firing on its own men
The Belarusian volunteers laugh as they tell the story of one of their commanders who deceived the Russians into unleashing artillery salvoes on their own positions near the war-torn salt-mining town of Bakhmut. “After we overran a trench, the commander used a radio we found, pretended to be Russian and gave false coordinates for a Russian fire mission,” explained Pavel Shurmei, a 46-year-old former Olympic rower who’s been fighting for Ukraine.
“And it worked,” chimed in a 25-year-old volunteer, with a rueful smile.
Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has dubbed the Belarusians fighting for Ukraine “crazed citizens” — but of all the foreign troops battling in Ukraine, the Belarusian volunteers are largely seen by their peers as among the most disciplined and lionhearted.
They’ve won battle honors, having in the early weeks after the invasion helped to defend Kyiv and recapture Irpin, a suburban town north of the Ukrainian capital. Irpin, like neighboring Bucha, suffered a reign of terror under Russian occupation. They also fought fearlessly in the battles for Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in Donbas last year.
The second-in-command of the Belarusians, and one of the founders of their Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, Aliaksiej Skobli, was killed north of Kyiv last March after leading a rearguard action while wounded. He was posthumously given the title of Hero of Ukraine by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The regiment, named after a Polish-Belarusian national hero who led an 1863 uprising against the Russian Empire, has lost at least half a dozen volunteers, including sniper Zmytser Apanosovich, who died in the fight for Irpin after being caught in shelling.
And Shurmei came close to being added to the list recently.
The Belarusians whom POLITICO interviewed take praise for their exploits modestly, insisting they are no better than others defending Ukraine. Similarly, Shurmei — who’s married to a Ukrainian — is matter of fact when explaining how he was wounded, saying when he got blasted by a tank shell he was in shock.
“I stood up and tried to walk away and I heard someone calling to me and one of the guys started to make a tourniquet. I then thought, ‘oh, my God.’ You are never prepared to get wounded. Only when you experience it can you know what it is like,” he said.
Shurmei was hit in the right arm after being caught in the open by a Russian tank. His unit took cover in a dip, but a shell hit a tree spewing shards. One of his comrades was badly wounded and after stabilizing him they started to withdraw an hour later. It was then the ex-Olympian got hit by another tank shell.
So why risk their lives?
Oleh Dashkevich echoes the official motto of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment — “First Ukraine, then Belarus.” He says, “Russia is our common problem. Belarus is a captive of Russia and Moscow is controlling Belarus and the people. So we need to fight Russia, which will help also Belarus. That’s why we are standing together.”
That’s not how Dashkevich’s parents see it. They were furious when he told them last August he was going to fight for Ukraine.
“They say I am a traitor,” he told POLITICO, adding: “I have not talked with them since.”
A public opinion poll conducted last year for Britain’s Chatham House suggested that 30 percent of Belarusians support Russia’s invasion.
The Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment was renamed a battalion last year when the number of Belarusian volunteers swelled. Neither Shurmei nor Oleh would confirm how many Belarusians are now fighting in Ukraine. “Several hundred,” was all they would acknowledge. Some estimates put the figure as high as 1,500. Whatever the number, they tend to be in the thick of the fight.
“When we show up some of the Ukrainian soldiers complain — they know that things are likely to get hot,” said Shurmei.
Aside from not wanting to go into detail about how many Belarusians are fighting for Ukraine, he and Dashkevich were cagey about one other thing — the incidents of sabotage in Belarus, including a drone attack in February that severely damaged a Russian military aircraft.
The attack was claimed by a Belarusian partisan group, BYPOL, which said it had used drones to strike the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk. Are there any links between the Belarusian volunteers in Ukraine and BYPOL? “We have no information on that,” said Shurmei, in perfect unbroken English.
But they do know what the Russians think of the Belarusians on the Ukrainian front lines.
Dashkevich said: “We avoid speaking Belarusian over the radio — when the Russians know we are opposite them they pull out all the stops to target us.”
Meet the Belarusians who tricked Russia into firing on its own men – POLITICO
Ukraine's capture of two villages shows 'severe degradation' of Russia's defending tr
Ukraine's capture of two villages shows 'severe degradation' of Russia's defending troops, experts say
Ukrainian troops' recapture of two villages near the front lines has caused a "severely degradation" of defensive Russian forces on the front lines, a think tank reported.
The respected Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian troops breached a strategic defensive line that Russian forces tried to hold onto in the area south of Bakhmut, citing Ukrainian military officials.
In doing so, it defeated three Russian brigades, the report said.
The Ukrainian recapture of the villages — Klishchiivka and Andriivka — likely left Russian forces battle-worn and less able to fight.
The forces "will likely struggle to replenish their combat strength and defend against any further Ukrainian offensive activity," the ISW said.
The ISW said that in the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces also most likely suffered heavy losses and retreated to a second line of defense, where they could use artillery to fire on advancing Ukrainian troops.
The think tank said it was unable to independently verify the strength and extent of Russian defensive lines or observe the degree of deterioration among the mentioned Russian units.
Ukraine's advance into new villages is the latest example of its steady but costly progress in the monthslong counteroffensive.
Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive got off to a slow start on June 4, prompting concerns over its strategy and pace.
But since late August, Ukrainian forces appear to have made steady and slow gains, with breakthroughs along Russia's first line of defense on the southern frontline, the ISW said, despite complex Russian defenses, including dense minefields and fortifications.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, told Reuters that cold and wet weather later this year, however, would hold up the counteroffensive.
The US Army general Mark Milley, who's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the same point, telling BBC News that Ukraine's counteroffensive had less than 30 days before the weather disrupted military operations.
"There's still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days' worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren't done," Milley told the outlet.
Ukrainian forces are now working on breaching the second line, Michael Kofman, a defense analyst and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine Advances Show Russian Troops in 'Severe Degradation': ISW
