A view of a patrol boat before it was hit by a missile.
Russia's naval power in the Black Sea is being eroded by the Ukrainian navy, which after scuttling its flagship no longer has a single large vessel. With the help of the Ukrainian army.
The Russian patrol boats were hit by the Ukrainian sea service's armed drones with laser-guided missiles on Monday.
The Ukrainians have sunk or damaged many Russian boats and ships that are no longer relevant to the current conflict.
The missile cruiser Moskva was holed up by two Ukrainian navy Neptune coastal anti-ship missiles on April 13. Two dozen or so major warships were part of the Black Sea Fleet at the time.
Three weeks earlier on March 24, an Alligator-class landing ship belonging to the Black Sea Fleet burst into flames while pier-side in Russian-occupied Berdyansk. The chain reaction seems to have started when the Ukrainian army hit the Tochka missile.
The Saratov sank quickly. Two landing ships moored nearby suffered damage and casualties. The attack on the amphibious force was a turning point in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Black Sea Fleet is no longer able to concentrate a large landing force or protect it from air and missile attack due to the loss of three amphibs and Moskva missiles. The Russians can open a littoral front along the western coastline of Ukraine in order to stage an attack on the port of Odessa.
The 5th Tank brigade, with its undamaged T-72 battalions, could roll east in support of the Ukrainian campaign around the port of Kherson, which has been occupied by the Russians since early March.
Moskva, Saratov and the other landing ships are the most significant naval casualties on the Russian side. On or before March 22, Ukrainian army troops in Mariupol, an historic port on the Sea of Azov, adjacent to the Black Sea, struck a Raptor with at least one Konkurs anti-tank missile as the boat patrolled close to shore.
Two big Russian ships were sunk, as well as two damaged, and three patrol boats were knocked out. Before the war, there were just seven large surface combatants,frigates and large corvettes, plus Moskva, in addition to a half-dozen landing ships, six or seven Raptors and six or so diesel-electric submarines.
The only waterway connecting the Sea of Azov and Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea is controlled by Turkey. The Black Sea Fleet has not been allowed to send in fresh ships by the Russian navy because Ankara is a strong backer of Ukraine.
The Black Sea Fleet is getting smaller and less effective as the Ukrainians chip away at it. There is no chance of the fleet restoring its power until after the war is over.
The Black Sea Fleet is in dire condition. The Russians no longer have the ability to protect their warships from aerial attack.
The fleet's main air-defender was believed to be Moskva's 200 mile air-search radars and 64 S-300 surface-to-air missiles. The cruiser couldn't defend herself.
The Black Sea Fleet has three 409-foot Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates. The biggest surface warships Russian industry can build are due to problems manufacturing or imports of large maritime engines.
Each of the three frigates has just 24 medium-range missiles that travel no farther than 30 miles. The Black Sea Fleet's area of operations stretching along 300 or 400 miles of coastline from Odessa to Mariupol is struggling to maintain an air-defense umbrella.
The gaps in the Russians' air-defense coverage have been exploited by the Ukrainians. A well-equipped, trained and motivated fleet should be able to detect and shoot it down before it gets close enough.
It is worth asking what the combined force of Kyiv's other drones, Tochka missiles and anti-tank missiles is.
The United Kingdom and the United States have donated anti-ship missiles and drones to the Ukrainian navy. The Russian fleet is losing the naval war to an enemy with no warships.
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