Speaking this week, James Heappey, the UK armed forces minister, said Russia’s Black Sea fleet had suffered a “functional defeat”. “It has been forced to disperse to ports from which it cannot have an effect on Ukraine,” he told the Warsaw security forum. The liberation of Ukraine’s waters was “every bit as important” as the counteroffensive last year in Kharkiv oblast, during which Kyiv regained territory, Heappey added.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Reznikov’s predecessor as defence minister, said Kyiv had pioneered “a new form of warfare”. It cost $10,000-$100,000 (£8,260-£82,600) to build a sea drone filled with explosives. Released in “swarms”, they targeted Russian ships costing hundreds of millions of dollars. “It’s an extremely asymmetric way of fighting enemy boats. This is true of cost and time. You can’t build a new ship quickly. They are huge platforms,” he said.
Recently, Ukraine has pummelled Russian bases in Crimea. It knocked out at least two S-400 air defence systems and a radar station. In September, Ukrainian special forces seized gas drilling rigs west of Crimea. Next, a missile slammed into Sevastopol’s shipyard. It damaged a Russian landing ship and submarine that was undergoing repair. It was the first time since 1945 that Moscow had lost a submarine in combat. Days later, Kyiv hit the Black Sea fleet HQ.
Ukrainian observers now dream of a new treaty of Paris – the 1856 deal that ended the Crimean War. It led to Russia’s diminishing influence in the region, after its defeat by the British, French and Ottoman empires. The treaty prohibited Russia from putting a navy in Sevastopol. “This war must end the same way, with the Black Sea fleet sunk, and Russia banned by international law from building a new one,” Zagorodnyuk said.
And what about Adm Sokolov? Ukrainian sources are increasingly confident he was killed last month, in the strike using Storm Shadow missiles. “The Russians can prove he is alive by making an interview with him,” Pletenchuk, the navy spokesperson, said.
