Ukraine navy chief says Russia is losing Crimean hub in Black Sea

Reuters:  The Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet has been forced to rebase nearly all its combat-ready warships from occupied Crimea to other locations, and its main naval hub is becoming ineffectual because of attacks by Kyiv, Ukraine's navy chief said.

Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa said Ukrainian missile and naval drone strikes had caused heavy damage to the Sevastopol base, a logistics hub for repairs, maintenance, training and ammunition storage among other important functions for Russia.

"They were established over many decades, possibly centuries. And clearly they are now losing this hub," Neizhpapa told Reuters in a rare interview in the port city of Odesa ahead of Ukraine Navy Day on Sunday.

More than 28 months since Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv has dealt a series of stinging blows to Moscow in the Black Sea although Ukrainian ground troops are on the back foot across a sprawling front.

Ukraine, which has no major warships at its disposal, has used uncrewed naval boats packed with explosives to target Russian vessels, and pounded the fleet's facilities and other military targets on Crimea with Storm Shadow and ATACM missiles.

"Almost all the main combat-ready ships have been moved by the enemy from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, and the ships are kept in Novorossiisk, and some of them are kept in the Sea of Azov," he said.

Russia's Novorossiisk naval base on its eastern Black Sea coast lacks the extensive facilities of Crimea's Sevastopol, which served as the storage and loading site for cruise missiles used by its warships to launch air strikes on Ukraine, he said.

"I understand that they are now trying to solve this problem in Novorossiisk," he said, describing this as a "main issue" for the fleet.

Russia's defence ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on Neizhpapa's remarks.

President Vladimir Putin told navy chiefs last month that Russia's fleet had been replenished over recent years and that a major modernisation was under way, including steps to "increase the combat stability of the fleet" and strengthen it.

Alongside strategic bombers and ground-based launchers, missile-carrying warships and submarines play an important role in Russia's regular long-range missile attacks.

Neizhpapa said Ukraine had destroyed or damaged 27 naval vessels, including five that he said were destroyed by sea mines laid by Ukrainian naval drones near the Bay of Sevastopol.

Moscow seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Before February 2022, Russia used its Black Sea Fleet, which consists of dozens of warships, to project power into the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Throughout the Ukraine war, Turkey, which controls the straits in and out of the Black Sea, has not allowed warships to enter or exit.