Ukraine is bombing the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, and this should worry the Russians

Ukraine carried out its deadliest missile attack to date on the city of Sevastopol in Crimea. For the first time, Ukrainian fighter pilots are said to have been able to launch long-range missiles over the Black Sea. This does not bode well for the Russian army in Crimea in the future.

The attack was reported on Tuesday morning by the Russian-appointed governor of the illegally occupied peninsula and later confirmed by the Ukrainian air force. Governor Mikhail Razvoshev said, according to the Russian news agency TASS, that the missile attack caused a fire in a “non-civilian facility.” Later, the governor spoke of a fire at the “Southern Sevmurzavod site,” referring to the city’s shipyard. Several explosions and fires were seen and heard in the images.

This will include several dry docks where ships are repaired. According to Russian military bloggers, the submarine Rostov-on-Don and landing ship Minsk were at the docks at the time of the attack, and both ships were at least seriously damaged. In fact, Planet Labs satellite images taken on Tuesday, before the attack, show a submarine and an amphibious transport ship in dry docks.

The image that emerged Tuesday afternoon also shows a badly damaged ship, known as the Minsk. The ship is black in several places. However, the exact extent of the damage is unclear.

Sevastopol is a major port city on the Black Sea located in the west of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally occupied and annexed in 2014. It is also the main port of Russia’s Black Sea war fleet. Russian cruise missiles from this fleet are launched towards Ukrainian cities almost every day.

Vital goal

The importance of Sevastopol cannot be overestimated. The city is a primary target for Ukraine in its efforts to eventually liberate the entire Crimean Peninsula from the Russian occupier. Just last month, the Ukrainians went special forces It landed near the city in a special operation for the first time since the beginning of the war.

The question remains: How was Wednesday’s attack carried out? According to the Russian Defense Ministry, this includes ten Ukrainian cruise missiles, seven of which were intercepted, and “three high-speed boats.” This is remarkable, given that drones have always been used in previous attacks on Crimea. The only long-range missiles that Ukraine currently possesses, which are the British Storm Shadow missiles and the French Scalp missiles, have a range of up to 250 kilometers, that is, slightly less than covering the distance between the front line and Sevastopol.

This means that Ukraine must have fired the missiles from aircraft over the Black Sea. Officially, Ukraine is making no comment, although a not-so-subtle hint came from the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshuk. He thanked on Telegram on Wednesday morning “the pilots of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces for their excellent combat work in Sevastopol.” A British defense source also confirmed to several media outlets that Su-24 fighter jets fired Storm Shadow missiles over the Black Sea.

to guarantee

The fact that Ukrainian aircraft can now apparently operate freely over the Black Sea, and that Russian air defenses at the heart of its main naval base appear to have failed to intercept the Ukrainian attack, should worry the Russian high command. This means that from now on other Russian ships in the Black Sea will not be safe. Adding to the humiliation is the fact that two modern ships, including a submarine said to have cost $300 million, were damaged or possibly destroyed.

Ukraine may have prepared the operation very carefully for weeks. In August, Ukrainian drones disabled a fully advanced S-400 air defense system, which can intercept air targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers, in western Crimea. Questions have already been raised about the effectiveness of Russian air defenses and a loophole in air defense may have been opened.

Ukrainian military intelligence also reported on Monday that it had regained control of oil platforms in the Black Sea that had been controlled by the Russians since 2015. This concerns the so-called Bozhko Towers and gas and oil platforms near the coast of Crimea. According to the intelligence service, it was a “unique operation” to recover the Petro Hodovalets, Ukraina, Tavrida and Sivash platforms. At some point during that operation, fighting broke out between the Ukrainians special forces On board boats and a Russian Su-30 fighter plane. “The Russian plane was damaged and had to withdraw.”

According to the intelligence service, Russia used the platforms for military purposes at the beginning of the invasion. “In particular, as landing sites for helicopters and for the deployment of radar equipment,” the HUR MO service said in a message on Telegram. Russian radar systems were likely sabotaged during the operation to enable the Ukrainian fighter pilots to be assigned two days later.