For the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, the "sea battle" is actually over
I will allow myself an afterword to Artem Shevchenko's film "Naval Battle. The Age of Drones" .
In fact, the defeat of the "famous and heroic" Russian Black Sea Fleet is not just a military-strategic fact, but also a geopolitical fact and a factor in the Ukrainian-Russian war.
And the effect of these factors is of regional and even global importance for world politics, as well as the practice of using navies in modern wars.
Our research has repeatedly provided a complete history of sinkings and damage to ships and boats of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (22 units of the ship and boat fleet were destroyed - excluding those whose damage cannot be restored; 20 units of the ship and boat fleet were damaged - including those that cannot be restored), but now the numbers and the percentages they make up of the total number of fleet units are no longer as important as they seemed a year ago.
The Ukrainian Defense Forces, represented by the GUR, the SBU, the Unmanned Systems Forces, aviation and air defense - based, of course, on the Ukrainian Navy - have not only "declared" the Black Sea Fleet, but have "zeroed out" its military value in such a not very large, but not small maritime theater as the Black Sea.
And this is a huge and unique event right now that is causing naval strategists and practitioners around the world to think hard. With the recent downing of helicopters and even jet aircraft by drones, this thinking is becoming more acute.
At one interesting meeting, my colleagues Mykhailo Honchar and Mykhailo Samus and I recalled how World War II put an end to huge artillery ships (battleships and heavy cruisers) and brought aircraft carriers and naval aviation to the fore.
Since then, for 80 years, the main surface strike force in the world's navies has been an aircraft carrier strike force consisting of a large aircraft carrier, preferably a nuclear carrier, with missile cruisers and missile destroyers and frigates, etc. And all this beauty costs hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars.
The war in the Black Sea, thanks to Ukrainian innovations, showed that in such waters as the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, as well as at a relatively short distance from the coast in other regions of the world, in the presence of small unmanned air and sea platforms in symbiosis with missile and electronic warfare equipment, surface ships become expensive targets. And no more.
But let's leave it to the admirals and politicians who ask them why they should spend hundreds of millions and tens of billions on these sea monsters that can be destroyed for almost nothing. Back to the Black Sea.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet in its current state (although it still has a relatively large number of missile ships) has simply become unnecessary in the face of the outstripping development of the "mosquito" and unmanned fleet in Ukraine.
It cannot safely go even a short distance - more than 35-40 km by land - from Novorossiysk, i.e., from the protection of coastal air defense and anti-maritime drone capabilities.
That is, it cannot interfere with commercial shipping, or, as it is fashionable to say, logistics, to enemy ports (and this is the main task of any fleet in war).
It would not have been able to protect sea transportation to Russian ports in the Black Sea. It is simply a gift of fate that Ukraine does not set such tasks and adheres to international conventions regarding attacks on civilian vessels at sea. At least for now . . .
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has completely lost its ability to land on the enemy's coast, which the Russians dreamed of and even tried in the first weeks of the Great War.
Such a fleet cannot even stay at its main base (it is said that even the families of the Black Sea Fleet sailors in Sevastopol apartments have already realized this), and has lost almost all of its ship repair base.
That is, this resort fleet is simply wasting huge amounts of money, and this is no longer a secret even among Russian fanatics. And the expression of sentiment on social media among those Russians who know a little about maritime issues is characterized by a continuous Russian mat.
Of course, we cannot sleep: Russia is starting to build naval drones, experiment with various means of fighting unmanned platforms, and in the future, naval drone battles on the Black Sea.
But this beautiful, elegant and formidable-looking Black Sea Fleet with subsonic Kalibr missiles, which proved to be ineffective, is a thing of the past.
