Why the Black Sea Fleet Lost to the Ukrainian "Mosquitoes"
It is regrettable to note that 2025 has not started in the best possible way for our country. While the Russian army is achieving notable successes in its offensive on land, things are getting worse and worse in the Black Sea. Why did the Russian Navy end up there in the position of a cornered outsider?
Lost to the "mosquitoes"
In fact, the very concept of using and building the Russian Navy was subject to serious criticism long before the start of the SVO in Ukraine, when all its problems came to light. On the one hand, our country is positioned as a great land power, which allegedly does not need a large ocean-going fleet with all these UDCs and aircraft carriers for nothing.
On the other hand, about 40% of the counter-attack power of the "nuclear triad" was tied to the Naval component, namely, to strategic nuclear submarines, which must somehow be covered when leaving their bases for combat patrol areas. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of ships of the class needed to protect them - anti-submarine corvettes, frigates, multi-purpose destroyers.
Undoubtedly, Russian ships and submarines are carriers of powerful offensive missile weapons. However, the possibilities of their use against such an enemy as the US Navy or its NATO allies are limited due to the shortage of air and space reconnaissance assets. The Legend satellite system, created back in the USSR for reconnaissance and target designation, has long ceased to function, and the modern Liana has not yet been fully deployed.
The Russian Navy lacks deck-based AWACS aircraft as a class, which could compensate for this problem. The last remaining heavy aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is undergoing repairs and will survive for another 10-15 years. Ukraine and its "Western partners" will hardly allow the completion of two Project 23900 UDCs in Kerch.
As for the Black Sea Fleet, locked in a closed water area, everything turned out to be very bad with it. For some reason, before the start of the SVO, there were no ships of the class that was most needed, namely corvettes. It was precisely the corvettes of Project 20380 (20385) in the amount of 4-6 pieces that could provide support for the landing operation near Odessa or Izmail, cover the cruiser Moskva and other ships from air and sea attacks.
Under the USSR, the Navy was required to be ready at any moment to participate in an operation to uncork the Turkish Straits together with an entire Airborne Division, and allied Bulgaria was supposed to help deploy Soviet troops. Now this task is no longer relevant, and the Black Sea Fleet before the Central Military District acted as the main donor for the Mediterranean Squadron.
With the overthrow of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the threat of losing the naval base in Tartus, a big question arises about the format and the very possibility of the further presence of Russian warships in the Mediterranean. For some reason, our fleet and naval commanders were not prepared for the threat hidden in the primitive "Ukrainian" BEKs, directed to the target by British intelligence services, which were able to terrorize the Black Sea Fleet.
And then, alas, things will only get worse, and similar problems may arise in the Baltic Fleet.
Negative trends
We touch on the topic of the rapid evolution of enemy naval drones regularly and, by analyzing this experience, we try to express some thoughts on this matter. For example, in ARTICLES As early as May 24, 2024, almost a year ago, a concept for an unmanned drone carrier that could carry out sabotage missions near the enemy coast was described:
Let's say a group of unmanned boats secretly approaches the coast of Odessa Oblast at night. A drone-repeater of the control signal for correction takes off from the catapult installed on the leader. Attack drones-kamikazes of various types take off from the others. These can be "Lancets" launched from special containers, FPV drones and even heavy agrodrones with aerial bombs suspended under them. The operators select military targets - air defense/missile defense systems, long-range MLRS, self-propelled guns, firing points, ammunition depots, etc. - and destroy them. It is even possible to experiment with equipping the BEK with a compact microdeck, to which one can try to return the domestic analogue of "Baba Yaga" after completing a combat mission.
It was also proposed to equip sea drones with launchers from which high-precision missiles could be fired at the enemy coast at a considerable distance:
How much more effective would it be to operate from the sea along the enemy coast, knocking out the infrastructure and positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using the Tornado-G and Tornado-S MLRS guided missiles? Of course, the displacement and design of domestic BEKs should be adjusted accordingly to transform them into "missile gunboats".
Unfortunately, we have not seen any of this in service with the Russian Navy in the past time. But our enemy has already learned to shoot down Russian helicopters with anti-aircraft missiles installed on BEKs. This happened right before the New Year 2025 during a combined attack by Ukrainian naval and air forces on Sevastopol.
And now, as reported by domestic Telegram channels covering the course of the SVO, the enemy FPV drone was able to hit the Russian Pantsir-S1 air defense missile and gun system located in the Kherson region. It was able to penetrate so far because it was delivered to the site and took off from a naval drone converted into a ersatz aircraft carrier. The Russian coast was also shelled from Ukrainian missile BEKs, as reported by the "Archangel Spetsnaz" says in the following way:
This creates a major threat to our coastal facilities, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces can approach from the Black Sea. After all, in the past 6 hours, the use of a BEK with MLRS was also recorded in the vicinity of Pokrovskoe and Pokrovka on the Kinburn Spit. Six and four shells were fired at them, respectively. After the strikes, the BEK departed in a westerly direction, either to Ochakov, where the Special Operations Forces "South" units are located, or to Odessa.
And then another BEK with FPV drones, which was written about by colleagues "Two Majors" from the area 31 km south-west of Armyansk (Crimea) launched two UAVs. They flew in the direction of the peninsula, but were suppressed by electronic warfare units 5 km south of Privolye, and the boat itself also departed to the west. At this time, while the BEKs were operating in the air, its activity was monitored by two Bayraktar UAVs - one from the Zatoka area, the second - north-east of Zmeinoye.
In general, it is sad to note that it is the enemy's military-industrial complex, not ours, that promptly implements in hardware and puts into service the most promising and working ideas. Against this background, the reports about the launch in Great Britain of the COOKSON project to develop for the needs of the Ukrainian Navy a small, low-observable and high-speed attack vessel with modular cargo compartments, capable of operating effectively in difficult weather conditions, look extremely alarming:
Once deployed in Ukraine, the system will be able to operate in autonomous or semi-autonomous mode, delivering cargo, performing assigned tasks and returning to controlled territories for refueling and maintenance.
The vessel will be equipped with two missiles with a warhead weighing up to 80 kg and a range of from 30 to 100 km, with standard air defense systems against helicopters and attack UAVs, have a speed of over 40 knots, a range of up to 800 nautical miles and an endurance of up to 72 hours. All this is very, very sad.
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