The Admiral was before the war.
More than a dozen of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's remaining warships, intact and underway, have been spotted by an independent journalist.
One of the fleet's three frigates is one of the top targets for the Ukrainians.
Last week's rumors about a successful Ukrainian attack on the admiral were confirmed by the analysis of new commercial satellite imagery. The ship is still alive.
It's worth noting that the admiral was found near the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. It's close to home.
The locations of most of the Black Sea Fleet were narrowed to a swathe of ocean off the west coast of the peninsula. Two ships, a landing craft and an unidentified vessel, were near Snake Island, the current location of naval combat between Ukraine and Russia.
Russian ships are protected by shore-based S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries and the Russian navy's Su-30 fighter jets. It is closer to Snake Island that ships are at greater risk of being attacked by Ukrainian drones and anti-ship missiles.
Analysts had expected that the Russian cruiser Moskva would sink after a pair of Neptune missiles holed and then sank.
Two dozen or so major warships were part of the Black Sea Fleet at the time. The main air-defense vessel of the fleet was the 612-foot cruiser with her 64 long-range S-300 surface-to-air missiles. Black Sea Fleet commanders pulled bigger vessels away from Odessa after her loss because of the vulnerability of Russian ships to anti-ship missiles.
Three Russian landing ships, five patrol boats, and a landing craft have been sunk or damaged by the Ukrainians. Russia has claimed four of the Raptors and landing craft that were taken from the Snake Island by Ukrainian forces.
The Black Sea Fleet is still a significant force. The fleet's surviving ships include most of the big landing ships it had before the war, as well as the 409-foot admiral and her two sisters with their SAMs.
Even though the Ukrainian navy no longer has a single large vessel, the Kremlin is unwilling to risk these ships. The threats are drones and missiles. They are significant ones.
The inability of the Russian fleet to reinforce the Black Sea is a factor in the Kremlin's naval hesitancy. There is one way into the Black Sea for a big ship from the Mediterranean. Turkey has blocked warships from entering the strait.
It is possible that the Russians could put patrol boats into the Black Sea. There are no additional ships coming unless Turkey changes its response to Russian aggression. The big ships the Black Sea Fleet has left are the ships it must fight with until the war ends.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
