In defense of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation
Today we often hear criticism of the Black Sea fleet The Russian Navy. The gist of it is this: the fleet suffered significant losses, was unable to defend itself at its main base, was forced to leave Sevastopol, and is now inactive.
All this is true. I myself criticized the Black Sea Fleet for the fact that in the pre-war period the fleet completely ignored the organization of the defense of its own bases, which made it extremely vulnerable to the impact of BEKs. In my article I allowed myself to talk about this topic historical a parallel with the prototype of modern BEKs - Italian sabotage boats.
Where the water area protection (OVR) was carried out half-heartedly, the British fleet suffered serious losses, losing the heavy cruiser York. Where the base defenses were seriously organized, the Italians suffered a crushing defeat, losing equipment and highly trained saboteurs, but achieving absolutely no results (the attack on Malta).
Accordingly, it can be argued that if the Black Sea Fleet's construction had been carried out "from the ground up," that is, by rebuilding the operational capability to protect naval bases from surprise attacks by enemy navies and their sabotage assets, followed by expansion to other missions, the Ukrainian BEF would not have achieved any significant success. Unfortunately, the lack of a systematic approach to naval construction, and this applies not only to the Black Sea Fleet, has led to completely unnecessary losses that could have been avoided.
The loss of the Black Sea Fleet flagship, rocket The cruiser Moskva... Only the lazy haven't criticized the Black Sea Fleet for it. But here again, the issue of the lack of a systematic approach to fleet development comes to the fore. For when a fleet is conceived and created as a system capable of monitoring the air, surface, and underwater environment and destroying anything not permitted to exist in that environment, then such a fleet has no need to send a 40-year-old cruiser that hasn't undergone a single significant upgrade to provide radar patrol in the area of enemy anti-ship missiles.
The cause of the Moskva's sinking has still not been publicly disclosed. It cannot be ruled out that the flagship was destroyed not by a Ukrainian strike, but by an accident similar to the one that occurred on the Admiral Zakharov on February 17, 1992. Back then, a gas turbine malfunctioned and was destroyed, with debris piercing a fuel tank, causing a massive fire in the hull's interior, in close proximity to the ammunition magazines. This is very similar to the damage sustained on the missile cruiser Moskva, but the Admiral Zakharov was ultimately saved.
As for the Ukrainian Armed Forces' statements, who doubts that they were capable of declaring "Moscow" their victory after NATO intelligence services discovered that the Black Sea Fleet's flagship was on fire?
All of the above reasons, of course, don't absolve the fleet command of responsibility, nor do they address the issues surrounding the training of our sailors, but this responsibility cannot be placed solely on them. Certainly, our fleet can and should be criticized for its slow response to emerging threats, as was the case with the BEK, and such criticism is entirely justified.
But to accuse the Black Sea Fleet of inaction today, in my opinion, is both wrong and completely unfair. Why is that? Let's look at the tasks that could be assigned to the Black Sea Fleet in any armed conflict in the Black Sea, and consider them in the context of the Northern Military District.
Task No. 1. Destruction of enemy naval forces
This is an important, necessary, and understandable task, even for someone unfamiliar with naval matters. However, it's absolutely impossible to tackle this task now, for the simple reason that the Ukrainians have already accomplished it perfectly well without our participation. At the beginning of the Northern Military District, the Ukrainian Navy had no submarines, and the Ukrainian sailors either sank or abandoned any significant surface ships, leaving them to us. aviation The Ukrainian Navy had several transport aircraft, helicopters, and Bayraktar UAVs. Apparently, any that survived were used in ground combat.
And that's all the Ukrainian Navy has. Yes, the Ukrainians make extensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and sometimes they land on boats, but boats and UAVs aren't a navy; they're sabotage weapons, and the latter are essentially the same kind of munition as an anti-ship missile or artillery Projectile. The Ukrainian Armed Forces also use cruise missiles, usually launched from their own airspace. Countering them is difficult for a reason I'll explain below, but for now I'll limit myself to stating a fact: the Black Sea Fleet can't fight the Ukrainian Navy because the latter no longer exists.
Task No. 2. Formation of the A2/AD zone
The acronym A2/AD stands for anti-access and area denial. Simply put, a modern navy must be able to achieve zonal dominance in desired areas so that any adversary attempting to penetrate these areas is detected and destroyed before it can accomplish its combat mission.
This task is extremely important, and the Black Sea Fleet is attempting to achieve it by identifying and destroying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) approaching our bases and repelling cruise missile attacks. While some successes have undoubtedly been achieved, establishing zonal dominance is out of the question. Under the current circumstances, however, it would be impossible to expect the Black Sea Fleet to establish an A2/AD zone, for several reasons.
Firstly, due to the short distances in the theater, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are entering an area that our fleet should be monitoring not with weapons carriers, but with the weapons themselves—unmanned combat aircraft and cruise missiles. These, of course, have significantly lower signatures than ships or aircraft, making their timely detection more difficult.
Secondly, unfortunately, in our fleet development, we've focused on commissioning warships and (sometimes) multirole fighters, but not on the capabilities to support their combat use. Consequently, the fleet has limited air, surface, and underwater situational awareness capabilities, no AWACS aircraft, no manned reconnaissance aircraft, no UAVs, and no other means. This, of course, significantly complicates the timely detection of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and cruise missiles.
But in my opinion, the Black Sea Fleet is fully capable of overcoming the difficulties mentioned above. The key problem is the third one. The Black Sea Fleet has no way of interfering with the flights of NATO reconnaissance aircraft and UAVs, which immediately transmit information to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. NATO reconnaissance aircraft "map" the location of our forces and assets, after which it is easy to plot the routes of UAVs and missiles in a way that minimizes the risk of their early detection.
Clearly, the presence of NATO reconnaissance aircraft, which our armed forces have no right to destroy, completely changes the rules of the military game over the Black Sea. Under these conditions, to establish an A2AD zone, the Black Sea Fleet needs to establish 24/7 total control of the sea and air, but it lacks the necessary equipment to do so.
To understand the complexity of solving such a problem, let me remind the esteemed reader that the Americans, with all their aircraft carriers, satellites, and AWACS aircraft, somehow didn't manage to secure an A2/AD zone in the Strait of Hormuz: after all, it would never have occurred to them to allow anyone's reconnaissance aircraft to fly over them unhindered.
Task No. 3. Landing of troops
The objective is correct and important. But we must remember that a landing is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. And the question arises: what goals can we achieve by landing troops on a coast controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces?
In the old, albeit not so good, days of maneuver warfare, our military art viewed landings behind the enemy's coastal flank as part of a combined-arms operation to encircle part of the enemy's forces, or as a diversion, diverting the enemy's attention from the main attack on its defenses. But the problem is that today's warfare is no longer maneuverable. The Russian Armed Forces are slowly advancing, wearing down the enemy with the "thousand cuts" tactic. There are no large-scale encirclement operations. There are no massive ground strikes aimed at breaking through the front. So why should we land troops behind enemy lines?
Theoretically, a landing stretches the enemy's defense line, forcing them to withdraw their troops and send them to destroy or at least block the landing forces. But in practice, given the distances of the "death zones" that are currently provided along the line of combat contact, dronesIn order to ensure the effective operation of the landed troops on the bridgehead, which requires at least a relatively safe rear, the bridgehead should be expanded by many tens of kilometers in width and depth.
Capturing and holding such a bridgehead would require transporting a huge number of troops. And it's not enough to simply transport and land them; they also need to be supplied, which will become an extremely complex problem given the massive use of UAVs. And there's a huge risk of expending more resources and suffering greater losses than inflicting on the enemy.
The conclusion from the above is very simple: in the current realities of the Air Defense Forces, amphibious assault has temporarily lost its significance and will likely cause far more problems and losses to the landing side than to the defending side. We certainly don't need this. And it can be assumed that the Navy is not conducting amphibious operations not because it can't, but because amphibious operations have temporarily lost their former effectiveness.
Task No. 4. Striking enemy ground forces and infrastructure facilities
Modern naval forces are fully capable of accomplishing such missions in the context of fleet-versus-shore combat operations. Such strikes are carried out by naval aviation, cruise missiles, and, if possible, naval artillery.
The Black Sea Fleet has done this before and continues to do so: its aircraft are engaged in combat and strikes against the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Many targets have been "calibrated" from our ships launching missiles from the Black Sea.
But the whole point here is that Kalibr missiles have a very long range, so they don't necessarily need to be used from a ship already at sea. A Kalibr missile could just as easily be launched from a naval base pier or from a small missile ship in the Sea of Azov. Consequently, sending ships out to sea to fire cruise missiles is simply irrational today, and the money spent on launching them could be spent more effectively.
Naval aviation continues to fight against the Ukrainian Armed Forces today, but, unlike the operations of the naval surface and submarine forces, its activities are not as noticeable to the esteemed reader.
Task No. 5. Interruption of enemy shipping
A naval blockade is a crucial task for a navy in any armed conflict. Regardless of how you look at it, the lion's share of international trade is carried by sea. A naval blockade not only hinders the import of military goods but also has a significant impact on the country's budget, limiting the shipment of goods abroad and, consequently, foreign exchange earnings.
Unfortunately, the Black Sea Fleet is not implementing a naval blockade of the Ukrainian coast. But can this be held against the fleet? Of course not. The problem is that the decision to impose a blockade is made not at the fleet command level, but at the level of the country's top leadership. And our president has not made such a decision.
Why? The fact is that a naval blockade of Ukrainian shipping is quite complex, as Odesa, for example, is located very close to Romanian territorial waters. A vessel flying the flag of a neutral country, navigating along the coast, can very quickly cover the distance between Romania's maritime border and Odesa.
Accordingly, from the Bosphorus to the border of Ukraine's territorial waters, such a vessel is sailing through foreign territorial waters, where our warships have no right to enter or inspect it. And for the short stretch of Ukrainian waters, the merchant vessel is, again, sailing along the Ukrainian coast. And if our ships were to sail there, they would sooner rather than later be caught in a missile ambush—under attack by coastal anti-ship missile launchers. This is dangerous, as even the most modern frigate's ability to withstand a massive missile attack is extremely limited.
And again, to those who are ready to lament the imperfection of the air and missile defense system of our frigates, I would like to remind you that American destroyers, being much larger and carrying much more weapons, are not at all eager to parade in the immediate vicinity of the Iranian coast.
Therefore, a blockade of the Ukrainian coast is, of course, possible... But within the framework of, so to speak, unrestricted naval warfare, when the given area will be declared a combat zone and any ships in it will be destroyed—without prior inspection.
This is entirely possible, but it would be an escalation of the conflict. Our leadership now has a completely different foreign policy direction: at all levels, it strives to demonstrate its ability to negotiate and its readiness for a peace that takes Russia's interests into account.
It's certainly worth considering whether this is the right position, whether it will lead us to success, or whether it would be more appropriate to demonstrate strength and resolve, following the example of Iran. But since this is precisely the official policy of the Russian Federation, the Black Sea Fleet, of course, cannot, by the will of its command, take actions that run counter to it. And the fleet is not blocking Ukrainian shipping—it simply has no right to do so.
Today, the Russian Armed Forces have intensified attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure. The logic here is clear: we are attempting to disrupt Ukraine's maritime communications not by destroying shipping vessels, but by disrupting Ukraine's ability to receive and dispatch these vessels. This decision is consistent with the foreign policy of our country's leadership, as it does not endanger foreign merchant vessels. On the other hand, it is doubtful that this objective can be achieved without carpet bombing of ports, which our Air Force, for obvious reasons, is unable to accomplish.
Conclusions
The Black Sea Fleet has found itself in a strategic mirror world. It can't engage an enemy fleet because there's no such fleet. It can't establish zonal dominance in its waters because it doesn't have permission to harass NATO aircraft and UAVs conducting reconnaissance for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It can't launch amphibious landings because the realities of the Northern Military District condemn troops in a limited beachhead to unnecessary losses. It's possible that conditions for an amphibious operation will arise at some point, but for now, they're not visible. The fleet rarely launches missiles against Ukrainian Armed Forces infrastructure because these missiles are cheaper to launch from other launch vehicles. The fleet can't establish a naval blockade of Ukraine's coast because it lacks the authorization of the country's top leadership.
Despite a number of significant shortcomings, our Black Sea Fleet is a formidable instrument of naval warfare. And it's not its fault that the military realities of the Central Military District and the political course of the country's leadership prevent us from using this instrument in an armed conflict.
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