Fifth of Russia's Black Sea Fleet 'Destroyed' in 4 Months: UK

Russia has lost 20 percent of its Black Sea fleet in the past four months, Britain's defense minister has said, after Ukraine scored a high-profile and dramatic victory in Crimea to round off a tough year for Kyiv and Moscow.

"Russia's dominance in the Black Sea is now challenged," the U.K. Defense Secretary, Grant Shapps, said in a post to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the Russian Black Sea fleet, largely based out of the southwestern Crimea port city of Sevastopol, and succeeded in sinking the Moskva flagship within weeks of Russia's invasion.

Moscow confirmed on Tuesday that a Ukrainian missile strike on the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia damaged a large landing ship, the Novocherkassk, which is believed to have carried drones.

Ukraine used cruise missiles to attack the landing ship at around 2:30 a.m. local time (7:30 p.m. ET) on Tuesday, Kyiv's air force said in a statement. "The fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller," Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk, who heads up the Ukrainian air force, added in a post to social media.

One person was killed and two others were injured, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of the annexed peninsula, said on Tuesday, adding several buildings had been damaged.

Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Black Sea emerged as a key battleground between Moscow's and Kyiv's forces. Ukraine has vowed to reclaim the Crimean peninsula, which sits to the south of the mainland, but has been controlled by the Kremlin's forces since its annexation in 2014.

Kyiv is known to have taken out a Russian Kilo-class submarine, the Rostov-on-Don, as well as damaging a number of Moscow's landing ships, such as the Minsk, the Saratov and the Olenegorsky Gornyak.

In the wake of embarrassing losses for its prized fleet, the Kremlin has relocated some of its Black Sea assets from the peninsula to its Novorossiysk base, in Russia's Krasnodar region further from Ukraine's coastline.

Russia is also thought to be establishing another Black Sea base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Georgia. This would move Russia's resources in the Black Sea even further away from Ukraine's reach.

Ukraine does not have a strong navy, but has wielded uncrewed vehicles and Western-provided missiles to great effect. Earlier this month, the U.K. and Norway said they would donate mine-clearing vessels, nearly two dozen raiding craft and 20 amphibious vehicles to the Ukrainian navy under a new Maritime Capability Coalition.

The donations from Kyiv's NATO allies will help Ukraine to "transform its navy," bringing it in line with the alliance and boost security in the Black Sea, the U.K. government said at the time.

But despite several wins for Kyiv in strikes on Crimea in recent months, Ukraine has fielded criticism for the slow pace of its summer counteroffensive that failed to reclaim swathes of Russian-controlled territory in the south and east of the country ahead of the winter.

"This latest destruction of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's navy demonstrates that those who believe there's a stalemate in the Ukraine war are wrong!" Shapps said on Tuesday.