Ukraine is systematically destroying Russia's Crimean air and naval defenses and logistics, reducing the peninsula's utility as a base for invasion forces and eventually preparing the way for ending the Russian occupation there. JL
David Axe reports in Forbes:
Ukraine has sunk or badly damaged a full third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s big warships. The Russians left behind in Crimea dozens of smaller minesweepers, landing craft and patrol boats—the workhorses of operations. So the Ukrainians are sweeping them from occupied water. Drone boats struck a fifth of the FSB’s Black Sea inventory of patrol boats, temporarily or permanently put out of service as the result of a single strike. While Ukrainian cruise missiles and ATACMS hit the main supply lines into Crimea, Ukraine’s drone boats plink the delivery craft. Ukrainian forces are reducing the Russians’ Crimean logistics from both ends.In 27 months of strikes with rockets, cruise missiles and explosive drone boats, Ukraine has sunk or badly damaged more than a dozen of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s big warships—a full third of the fleet.
Clearly worried about losing the rest of the fleet, Russian naval commanders ordered the surviving vessels to retreat—and to redeploy from ports in Russian-occupied Crimea to ostensibly safer ports in southern Russia.
But the Russians left behind in Crimea potentially dozens of smaller minesweepers, landing craft and patrol boats—the workhorses of daily operations around Crimea. So the Ukrainians have turned their deadly attention to these smaller vessels, and are sweeping them from occupied water.
The latest raid may have been the most costly for the Black Sea Fleet’s small craft flotilla. Early Thursday morning, the Ukrainian intelligence directorate’s Group 13 maritime strike force steered their 18-foot Magura V5 drone boats, each laden with hundreds of pounds of explosives, toward Vuzka Bay in western Crimea.
Russian aircraft tried to intercept the drones, but at least a few got through and reached the bay. Spooked Russian gunners opened fire, indiscriminately spraying tracer rounds and failing to halt the raid.
In quick succession, the drone boats struck four KS-701 patrol boats belonging to the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB. Two of the boats sank, according to the Ukrainian intelligence service. Two others were damaged.
That’s a fifth of the FSB’s Black Sea inventory of around 20 KS-701s, temporarily or permanently put out of service as the result of a single strike. Notably, separate Ukrainian raids on the same day—reportedly using either Neptune cruise missile or Army Tactical Missile Systems rockets or a mix of both—damaged two Russian ferries whose main mission is shuttling supplies across the Kerch Strait into eastern Crimea.
It’s death by a thousand cuts for what remains of Russia’s maritime capability in Crimea. The 28-foot KS-701s aren’t heavily armed, if they’re armed at all. They’re not glamorous. But they’re useful. “The occupiers used these means for logistics and patrolling the water area near the temporarily occupied peninsula,” the Ukrainian intelligence directorate explained.
The last time the Russians lost a KS-701 around Crimea, in September, the boat was offloading supplies for Russian troops when it was hit—apparently by a Ukrainian aerial drone firing a guided missile. Where a bigger warship might survive a hit by a missile or drone boat, a four-ton KS-701 stands no chance.
Think of the KS-701s as waterborne delivery vans for supplies flowing from southern Russia into Crimea. The boats don’t haul the supplies into the peninsula. They deliver the supplies the last few miles to the final destination.
So while Ukrainian cruise missiles and ATACMS pluck at the main supply lines into Crimea—large landing ships, ferries, bridges and railroads—Ukraine’s drone boats plink the delivery craft. In that way, Ukrainian forces are reducing the Russians’ Crimean logistics from both ends.
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