Analysis: As Ukraine successfully targets Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – is greater nonetheless higher within the army?
By Sean Bell, army analyst
Russia’s naval army would possibly dwarf that of Ukraine, but the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) continues to be focused – and more and more successfully – by Ukrainian forces.
Conventional army knowledge suggests the biggest, greatest outfitted army will prevail, but Ukraine seems to have turned that precept on its head.
Why is Ukraine attacking the Russian Navy, and does this technique expose a essential vulnerability for most of the world’s naval powers?
Following Russia’s unlawful annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine recognised its Sevastopol-based navy couldn’t match Russia’s BSF militarily, so these ships that would not escape – round 75% of the Ukrainian Navy – have been captured by Russia, and the Ukrainian flagship Hetman Sahaidachny was scuttled to stop it falling into Russian arms.
Turkey controls the Bosphorus Straights and denies the passage of any army vessels in the course of the battle, enabling the BSF to blockade the Black Sea and dominate Ukraine’s territorial waters.
However, a core precept of struggle is to keep away from your enemy’s power and assault their weak point, notably in case your enemy is superior in dimension and functionality.
Ukraine has due to this fact leveraged know-how to conduct a collection of “uneven” assaults towards the Russian BSF, together with sinking the Moskva, concentrating on quite a few ships and submarines with a mixture of drones and missiles, and this previous week, an audacious assault on the “brains” of the BSF – its army HQ.
Ukraine, a nation with no army ships, has compelled a superpower’s navy into retreat.
But why?
Read Sean Bell’s reply and full evaluation under…
