Summary and Key Points: Ukraine has done something planners thought impossible: cripple a great power’s navy without having one of its own.
-Over four years, Kyiv’s missiles and cheap sea drones have cost Russia roughly a third of its Black Sea Fleet, struck a Kalibr-launching submarine inside a “protected” Crimean base, and forced the rest to flee east.
-The threatened Russian assault on Odesa never came. The lesson now rippling through the world’s navies: ship count no longer decides who controls the sea.
Russia’s Navy Under Siege in Ukraine War
Kirov-Class Russian Navy. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Russian Navy Kirov-class Battlecruiser. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it fully expected to dominate the Black Sea. And why wouldn’t it? It entered the war with roughly 40 surface warships, seven submarines, long-range Kalibr cruise missiles, and the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters at Sevastopol, while Ukraine possessed little more than a handful of patrol vessels and one aging frigate that was scuttled shortly after the invasion began.
But today, Russia’s position is quite different. More than four years later, one of Moscow’s most important military assets has suffered losses that few would have predicted when the invasion began. Russia has lost roughly a third of its Black Sea Fleet since 2022, and the losses have come despite the fact that Ukraine effectively entered the war without a Navy of its own. Instead of challenging Russia ship-for-ship, Kyiv has built a campaign around anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles, drones, intelligence gathering, and sophisticated unmanned surface vessels. And the strategy has worked.
The result has been one of the most remarkable naval campaigns in modern military history.
Why the Black Sea Fleet Matters
The Black Sea Fleet is one of Russia’s oldest and most prestigious military formations. Based primarily in Sevastopol, Crimea, its history stretches back to the late eighteenth century and the expansion of the Russian Empire into the Black Sea region.
The fleet gives Russia access to the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and, through the Turkish Straits, the Mediterranean. It has played a central role in Moscow’s operations in Syria, supported military operations throughout southern Ukraine, and provided Russia with a platform from which to launch cruise missile attacks deep into Ukrainian territory.
At the beginning of the war, the fleet was expected to help completely isolate Ukraine from the sea. Russian warships operated freely around Crimea and threatened amphibious operations against the Ukrainian coast. And, in fact, the capture of Odesa was widely discussed as a potential objective for Russia. But that never materialized – and instead, the fleet became a target.
Russian Kilo-Class Submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Kilo-Class Submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The Sinking of the Moskva
Things quickly went wrong when, in April 2022, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva cruiser, was sunk.
On April 13, Ukrainian forces reported striking the vessel with domestically produced Neptune anti-ship missiles while it was operating in the Black Sea south of Odesa. Russian authorities acknowledged a major fire and ammunition explosion aboard the ship before confirming that it had sunk the following day while being towed to port.
The loss was big news for several reasons.
The Moskva was not just another warship – it was the fleet’s command vessel and carried substantial air-defense capabilities designed to protect other Russian ships operating in the region. Its sinking was the largest Russian naval loss since World War II and immediately proved that the rest of the fleet was vulnerable.
Just as importantly, the attack also demonstrated that Ukraine could strike major naval targets from land without possessing a comparable Navy of its own. For the Russians, there was a significant psychological impact that was almost as damaging as the actual military loss.
Crimea No Longer Safe
As the war continued, Ukraine stopped attacking individual ships at sea and began targeting infrastructure that supported the fleet. Perhaps the best example of this was the September 13, 2023, missile attacks that struck naval facilities in Sevastopol. The strikes hit the large landing ship Minsk and the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-on-Don while both vessels were in dry dock undergoing maintenance. The strikes were effective, and they exposed a growing problem for Russia – specifically, that even heavily defended military facilities inside occupied Crimea were no longer safe.
The Rostov-on-Don was particularly valuable because it was capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles against targets throughout Ukraine. Damaging such a vessel inside a protected naval base demonstrated an increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian ability to identify and strike high-value targets.
The attack was also disruptive because it affected the repair infrastructure that Russia relied upon to keep damaged vessels operational. It all meant that Ukraine was no longer just targeting ships but damaging Russia’s ability to regenerate after losses.
Sea Drones Change Naval Warfare
While missile attacks generate headlines and demonstrate Ukrainian capability, some of Ukraine’s most innovative victories in this space have come from unmanned surface vessels. These are sea drones packed with explosives that often cost only a fraction of the price of the ships they target. They have, in fact, become one of the defining weapons of the Black Sea campaign.
A good example of this came on March 5, 2024, when Ukraine’s military intelligence service announced that maritime drones had successfully attacked the Russian patrol ship Sergey Kotov near the Kerch Strait. According to Ukraine, multiple drone boats struck the vessel during the operation, reportedly striking from several directions before causing catastrophic damage.
Russia Is Losing Control of the Black Sea
The entire Black Sea Fleet has not been destroyed, and Russia is still capable of launching missile attacks from both ships and submarines – but the fleet’s role in the war has changed dramatically.
Many Russian vessels have relocated away from Sevastopol toward ports farther east, including Novorossiysk, in an effort to reduce their exposure to Ukrainian attacks. The threat of an amphibious assault on Odesa has largely disappeared, while Russia’s freedom of movement in parts of the Black Sea has become increasingly constrained.
Perhaps most importantly, though, Ukraine has made military planners around the world think a little differently. Naval superiority is no longer determined solely by the number of ships a country possesses – or even by how sophisticated those vessels are.
About the Author: Jack Buckby
Jack Buckby is a British researcher and analyst specializing in defense and national security, based in New York. His work focuses on military capability, procurement, and strategic competition, producing and editing analysis for policy and defense audiences. He brings extensive editorial experience, with a career output spanning over 1,000 articles at 19FortyFive and National Security Journal, and has previously authored books and papers on extremism and deradicalization.
