Remember This Day

It’s a crucial stage in the battle for the Black Sea.

This week marked another milestone in the battle for the Black Sea, as the Russian fleet reportedly withdrew its last patrol ship out of occupied Crimea. This was announced by the Press Secretary of the Ukrainian Navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk, who noted the historical nature of the Russian retreat with the words: "Remember this day."

The withdrawal of Russian warships from Crimea is the latest evidence that, against all odds, Ukraine is actually winning the war at sea. When Russia first began blockading Ukraine's ports on the eve of a full-scale invasion in February 2022, few believed that the dilapidated Ukrainian fleet would be able to seriously challenge the naval dominance of Russia's powerful Black Sea Fleet. However, soon after the fighting began, it became apparent that Ukraine did not intend to cede control of the Black Sea to Putin without a fight.

Since the sinking of Russia's Black Sea Fleet's flagship Moskva in April 2022, Ukraine has used a combination of domestically produced drones and missiles with long-range weapons supplied by the West to deliver a series of crushing blows to Putin's fleet. Cruise missiles supplied by Kyiv's British and French partners played an important role in this campaign, but the most powerful weapon was its own rapidly developing fleet of innovative naval drones.

The results speak for themselves. When the full-scale invasion began, Russia's Black Sea Fleet numbered 74 warships, most of which were based in the ports of Russian-occupied Crimea. In just over two years, Ukraine has managed to sink or damage about a third of these ships. In the second half of 2023, there were already reports that Russian warships were hastily transferred across the Black Sea from Crimea to the relatively safe port of Novorossiysk, located in Russia. By March 2024, Russia's Black Sea Fleet had become “functionally inactive,” according to the UK Ministry of Defence.

Ukraine's astounding success in the battle for the Black Sea has significant practical implications for the wider war. This disrupted Russian logistics and caused problems with resupply of Russian troops in southern Ukraine, as well as reduced Russia's ability to bomb Ukrainian targets from warships armed with cruise missiles. What is very important, it also allowed Ukraine to break the blockade of the country's Black Sea ports and resume commercial traffic along the new sea corridor. As a result, the export of Ukrainian agricultural products approached the pre-war level, providing Kyiv with a vital economic resource.

Russia's response to the mounting setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea has also been extremely revealing and provides valuable lessons for the future of warfare. It has often been suggested that a cornered and defeated Vladimir Putin may resort to the most extreme measures, including the use of nuclear weapons. In fact, he reacted to the humiliating defeat of the Black Sea Fleet by quietly ordering the remaining warships to retreat.

This unimpressive answer is all the more revealing given the symbolic significance of Crimea for the Putin regime. The Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in the spring of 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, which occupies an almost mystical place in Russian national folklore as the home base of the country's Black Sea Fleet. Over the past decade, the occupied Ukrainian peninsula has often featured in Kremlin propaganda trumpeting Russia's return to great power status, and has come to symbolize Putin's personal claim to a place in Russian history.

The elevated status of Crimea was initially enough to make some international partners of Ukraine afraid to authorize strikes on the occupied peninsula. However, the Ukrainians did not experience such fears. Instead, they simply ignored the Kremlin's words about the terrible consequences and began to attack Russian military facilities throughout Crimea and in the Black Sea. More than two years later, these attacks have become a common feature of the war and are taken for granted by all sides. In fact, the Kremlin media downplay the attacks on Crimea and mostly ignore the frequent sinking of Russian warships, no doubt in order not to damage Putin's reputation.

The Russian fleet's willingness to retreat from its supposedly sacred ports in Crimea made a mockery of Moscow's so-called “red lines” and exposed the emptiness of Putin's nuclear threats. Nevertheless, Kyiv's international allies are still unwilling to draw obvious conclusions. Instead, Western support for Ukraine continues to be defined by self-destructive fears of escalation.

For almost two and a half years, Ukraine's partners have allowed themselves to be intimidated by denying Ukraine certain categories of weapons and limiting strikes on Russia. They usually do this by “piously” referring to the need to prevent the current conflict from spreading further. Western politicians, obviously, prefer to ignore the convincing data of the Black Sea battle, which confirms that if faced with decisive resistance, Putin would rather retreat than escalate.

The West's fear of escalation is Putin's most effective weapon. It allows him to limit military assistance to Kyiv and at the same time not to allow Ukraine to strike back at Russia. This slowly but surely sets the stage for Russia's inevitable victory in the long war of attrition. Western leaders argue that they are motivated by a desire not to provoke a larger war, but that is what will happen if they continue to pursue a misguided policy of escalation management and fail to stop Putin in Ukraine.

Peter Dixon, New Voice

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