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Ukraine Has a Navy and It Is Scary
An uncoventional navy is on the rise
At long last, the information I so badly sought but could never get my hands on has arrived. A recent story from the Wall Street Journal revealed that Ukraine has destroyed 10 ships and damaged 14, while 42 ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet still remain.
Knocking out 24 out of 66 ships is very good for a nation without a single ship. The cat-and-mouse game between Ukraine and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has entered the next stage.
After Ukrainian forces relentlessly targeted Russian naval ships in Crimea, the Russians moved their ships to the distant Novorossiysk port. Since it became too dangerous to navigate the Black Sea, they started using the highly protected Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov to conduct their regular bombing missions.
This is not a bad strategy, as it keeps the Russian naval fleet under the protective cover of air-defense units straddling the Kerch Bridge, while also keeping a safe distance from the pesky naval drones that Ukraine keeps building and sending their way.
As a result, the size and scale of the Ukrainian attacks against the Russian naval fleet came down sharply. From hitting one or two ships a month, we had to wait for months to learn about a hit. And the ships that were hit recently were…
