‘The Newest Ship Has Sunk’

The Ukrainian Armed Forces colonel told what was left of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The Russian Navy missile corvette Tsyklon joined the Black Sea Fleet in July 2023, and on May 19, a Ukrainian missile attack sank this Karakurt-class ship in Sevastopol.

Is there anything left from the Black Sea Fleet? Charter97.org website asked this question to Ukrainian military analyst, reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Petro Chernyk:

— It remains, and the Russians should not be underestimated. The information that the last ship of the Black Sea Fleet was allegedly sunk is incorrect. The point is that it was in the bay of Sevastopol that the last ship of the Karakurt class was sunk.

Collectively, they have five more categories of missile carriers. Two large Burevestnik-class frigates (each with 8 launch containers for ZM14 missiles). This ship belonged to project 22800 Karakurt. There are also 21631 Buyan-M and project 22160 Vasily Bykov. Plus there are diesel-electric submarines of the Varshavyanka type. At least three of them are in working condition.

If you add up all the ships together, they have about 15-20 in working order.

The difficult question is what Russians have in working order and what they don’t. Because the Ukrainian Armed Forces drove them out of the bays of Sevastopol, taking everything under fire control. Ships are constantly in need of endless repairs, and a normal repair base was only in Sevastopol.

Another point concerns special cranes for loading rockets. It’s not just like that: they took an ordinary KamAZ-type crane and loaded the rocket. This is special equipment, which was also only available in Sevastopol. This is the answer to the question why the Russians don’t shoot.

They themselves do not fully understand the condition of their equipment, since they cannot fully maintain it. But they are working on it, moving all repair facilities from Sevastopol to Tuapse, Novorossiysk and Abkhazia. But this is a very long process.

It cannot be said that everything was sunk. The great thing is that we do this methodically, scrupulously and efficiently. It’s also great that the newest ship sank, and about 17 more occupiers died there. But they have serious problems with personnel training. It is more difficult and complicated for them to select these people. But the most important thing is that we deal prestige blows to them.

However, the fate of the war will be decided solely on land. Even if Ukraine sinks every last Russian boat, everything will still be decided on land, and not in the Black Sea. Indeed, we have moved to the level of a war of prestige.

— Is there any point in having a Russian naval base in the Crimea, given the precision strikes of ATACMS?

— Not anymore. Parity is entirely on the Ukrainian side. They will withdraw as much as possible from Sevastopol everything that is there.