Russia's Black Sea Fleet Suffers Fresh Setbacks

Russia's Black Sea Fleet is again under attack as Moscow seeks to enforce a renewed naval blockade on Ukrainian shipping—a move that Kyiv has warned imperils food security for millions of people around the world and risks blowing another hole in the country's withered budget.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that it defeated an attack by Ukrainian three naval drones on two Black Sea patrol boats—the Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov—that were sailing around 210 miles southwest of the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

"All three unmanned enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the ships' standard weapons," the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The reported naval drone attack came two days after Russia held its annual Navy Day parade, which was notable for the absence of aircraft and strategic nuclear submarines and was reportedly accompanied by heightened security measures.

As Turkey blocks any outside Russian warships from entering the Black Sea through the Bosporus, Ukraine looks to drones, anti-ship missiles, and other methods to make up for its lack of conventional naval forces to attack the Black Sea Fleet.

This week, Kyiv appears to be again wielding these weapons against the Black Sea Fleet's vessels and headquarters, though Ukrainian officials routinely refuse to confirm or deny involvement in such attacks. Naval drones have been causing particular problems for Russia in recent weeks, not least in the successful attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge in July.

Tuesday's reported attack came on the heels of a similar operation on July 24, in which Moscow said the Sergei Kotov had been unsuccessfully targeted by Ukrainian naval drones. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.

The Black Sea has been a hot theater of the war since the opening hours of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia was expected to quickly dominate the strategic body of water, but instead found itself locked in costly—and at times humiliating—exchanges with Ukrainian forces over Snake Island and its ships the targets of multiple strikes at sea and in port.

The sinking of the Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva guided-missile cruiser is the most notable Russian naval casualty of the war to date. Repeat naval and aerial drone attacks on sites in Crimea have maintained a steady tempo of problems for the fleet.

Though Moscow's warships seem to have emerged unscathed from recent naval operations, they have reportedly proved unable to enforce the enforce the Black Sea naval blockade reimposed after the July attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge. That operation has reportedly prompted Russian authorities to install new spiked boom defenses to deny a repeat.

On Monday, three vessels—the Ams1 traveling from Israel, the Sahin 2 from Greece, and the Yilmaz Kaptan from Turkey and Georgia—were reportedly passing through the area on their way to Ukrainian ports on the Danube River, which have been among those targeted by Russian missiles and drones since the collapse of the Black Sea Initiative.

The Black Sea Initiative began in July 2022 after Ukraine and Russia signed separate deals with the United Nations and Turkey to ensure security for vital agricultural exports. The agreement facilitated the export of some 36 million tons of grain before Russia withdrew from the accord in July, following the latest attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge.

As of Tuesday morning, the three ships had all reached the Danube Delta where they were waiting among dozens of other vessels to proceed upriver.

Andrii Ryzhenko, a retired Ukrainian naval captain and now a strategic expert at the defense and logistics consultant company Sonata, told Newsweek that the successful passage of civilian ships through the Black Sea may represent a "new road of life" for Ukrainian exports.

Ryzhenko noted that the vessels hugged the coastline of other Black Sea nations to avoid Russian warships, which he said were "hunting for vessels in the open sea."

Reports indicated that the vessels transited the Black Sea under the watchful eyes of several U.S. surveillance aircraft, including a P-8A Poseidon, E-3A Sentry, and RQ-4B Global Hawk.

Though NATO nations have so far refused to provide direct security for Black Sea shipping—fearing a confrontation with Russian vessels—the Financial Times recently reported that the alliance will increase aerial patrol flights and drone deployments in response to Russian threats.

Moscow, he added, should be expected to respond. "The Russians will react to this, and they will try to mitigate this possibility to continue the grain initiative," Ryzhenko said, noting that Russia may employ naval mines and drones close to foreign coastlines.

Meanwhile, Ryzhenko said Moscow will be prepared for more Ukrainian "sea denial" operations using naval drones. "The chance to hit Russian ships still exists, and if this type of drone hits the Vasily Bykov patrol vessel, or even a frigate like the Admiral Grigorovich-class, it will destroy it because it has 300 kilograms of explosives."