Russia's Black Sea War Plan Isn't Working: UK

Russia's tactics against Ukraine's creative warfare in the Black Sea are falling short, according to a new assessment, as Moscow and Kyiv step into the third year of all-out war.

Russia can still strike at Ukraine from the eastern parts of the Black Sea, but it is "increasingly evident that the defensive posture adopted to mitigate against Ukraine's non-conventional approach to maritime warfare is not working as intended," the British Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Black Sea emerged as a key battleground between Kyiv and Moscow. Ukraine has vowed to reclaim Crimea, which sits to the south of the mainland on the Black Sea, but has been controlled by the Kremlin's forces since its annexation in 2014.

Ukraine does not have a large navy, but has made impressive use of naval drones to carry out dramatic strikes on Russia's Black Sea assets that have proved deeply embarrassing to Moscow. Russia's Black Sea operations have been "greatly complicated, if not paralyzed," by the nearly two years of all-out war between Moscow and Kyiv, Ukraine's navy said in early February.

Ukrainian-designed Magura V5 naval drones attacked and destroyed Russia's Caesar Kunikov large landing ship near the southern Crimean city of Alupka, southeast of Russia's naval base at Sevastopol, Ukraine's military intelligence agency said earlier this month. Russia has lost a slew of other vessels, including its Black Sea flagship, the Mosvka, several other landing ships, and a submarine.

Ukraine has used uncrewed vehicles and guided missiles to "push Russian threat perception to new highs" and force Moscow to shift many of its assets further east away from mainland Ukraine, the U.K. government evaluated on Sunday.

The Kremlin has relocated some of its Black Sea assets from the peninsula to its Novorossiysk base, in Russia's Krasnodar region further from Ukraine's coastline. Russia is also thought to be establishing another Black Sea base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Georgia. This would move Russia's resources in the Black Sea even further away from Ukraine's reach.

Britain's defense minister, Grant Shapps, said in late December that Russia had lost 20 percent of its Black Sea fleet in the previous four months.

"The ongoing success of Ukrainian attacks has persistently forced the BSF [Black Sea Fleet] onto the back foot," the U.K. government added in its Sunday update, posted to social media.

Ukraine's operations against the Kremlin's Black Sea Fleet have been more successful than its efforts to roll back Russian control of territory in southern and eastern mainland Ukraine. Kyiv launched a counteroffensive push in early June, reclaiming a smattering of villages but ultimately failed to recapture swathes of territory from Russia. Ukraine is now contending with Moscow launching offensives along several points of the frontline.

"I think the efforts to drive the [Black Sea Fleet] out of Crimea and away from the western Black Sea have been the most successful aspect of the counteroffensive," retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who headed up U.S. Army Europe, previously told Newsweek.