Last Russian Black Sea fleet patrol ship departs Crimea: Kyiv

The “last patrol ship” belonging to Russia’s Black Sea fleet is moving away from Crimea, Ukraine’s navy said on Monday, as Russia’s naval forces stationed close to mainland Ukraine struggle to contend with persistent Ukrainian drone and missile attacks.

“Remember this day,” Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s navy, said in a statement posted to social media.

The vessel is a Project 1135 ship, Pletenchuk told Reuters. Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.

Ukraine does not have a major navy or large warships. Still, it has effectively wielded innovative naval drones, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and missile strikes to target Russia’s Black Sea fleet that has been partially based in the southern Crimean port city of Sevastopol since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Western intelligence has evaluated that Russia has restricted its activity in the western Black Sea, where Ukraine can more easily threaten its fleet. Russia relocated many of its vital assets from the port at Sevastopol further east to its Novorossiysk base in Russia’s Krasnodar region.

Moscow is also thought to be establishing another base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Georgia. This would move Russia’s resources even further away from Ukraine’s reach. Ukraine’s navy has also indicated Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov, northeast of Crimea.

Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, the head of Ukraine’s navy, told Reuters earlier this month that Moscow was “losing” Sevastopol, adding: “Almost all the main combat-ready ships have been moved by the enemy from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet.”

Russia has attempted to shield its bases from attacks by using barges, decoys and false silhouettes to trick or trip up Ukrainian drone operators, according to British intelligence.

Moscow announced earlier this year that it would beef up the protection around its fleet with large-caliber machine guns to shoot at incoming naval drones before they strike Russian vessels.

In early March, Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said it had destroyed the Sergei Kotov, a Russian patrol vessel, close to the strategic Kerch Strait separating eastern Crimea from mainland Russia.

The GUR said at the time that the vessel “suffered damage to the stern, right and left sides,” valuing it at around $65 million.

Since the start of the year, Ukraine has targeted a number of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet vessels using missiles and naval drones.

Since the beginning of 2024, Kyiv has struck a handful of Russia’s landing ships, a reconnaissance vessel, a corvette and a patrol ship. Previously, in Ukraine’s war effort, Kyiv took out a Kilo-class submarine and, in the early days of full-scale war, the Moskva flagship.

Although Russia’s navy has “suffered significantly in the Black Sea,” its overall naval force remains strong, and “Russian naval activity worldwide is at a significant peak,” General Christopher Cavoli, the head of the U.S.’s European command, told U.S. lawmakers in April.

Update 7/15/24, 10:28 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.