Ukraine's Battle for the Black Sea -- And Free Europe
Get a map of the Black Sea. Draw a line south-southwest from the Ukrainian seaport of Odesa to the Bosporus -- the eastern Turkish strait that passes Istanbul. Via the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, ships enter the Mediterranean and global sea lanes.
As I write this essay, Russian surface naval forces have withdrawn from the western Black Sea and basically taken refuge in northeastern seaports and the Sea of Azov.
Ukraine won this victory with next to no naval vessels -- at least conventional naval vessels. Ukraine has used anti-ship cruise missiles. In April 2022, upgraded Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles sank the Black Sea Fleet's flagship, the missile cruiser Moskva.
Anti-ship cruise missiles are 20th-century weapons. Ukraine's sea control arsenal, however, is decidedly 21st century, with aerial drones, unmanned surface vessels/vehicles (USVs) and unmanned subsurface variants. Think of the unmanned vessels as "drone" warships. Weaponized seagoing USVs are hard to spot visually and on radar.
Russia's air force failed to gain air superiority over land and over the Black Sea. Russian ships and land-based defenses failed to protect the Crimean naval base at Sevastopol from aerial and sea drone attacks. Sevastopol has become a graveyard for Russian warships. In August 2023, Ukrainian USVs damaged a Russian ship near the naval base at Novorossiysk -- eastern Black Sea, about 300 kilometers east of Sevastopol. That's a long-range attack. Since that attack, Russia has made limited use of Novorossiysk.
Russia still operates Black Sea submarines. Ukraine, however, is about to take delivery of the Swedish Torpedo 47 -- an anti-submarine weapon that can be fired from a land-based launch or dropped from helicopter.
In late March, a Ukrainian Navy spokesman told the Associated Press that since February 2022, "Ukraine has sunk or disabled a third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea ..."
Can Ukraine defeat Russia? Ukraine has certainly defeated Russia in the Battle of the Black Sea. Free Europe believes it can on land.
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