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Ukraine's Counteroffensive Is More Successful Than You Think
The focus on the stalled land war obscures major successes in Crimea and the Black Sea.
A satellite image shows smoke billowing from the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet after a Ukrainian missile strike in Sevastopol, Crimea, on Sept. 22. PLANET LABS VIA REUTERS
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While some of this criticism may be justified, the almost singular Western focus on territorial breakthroughs has distracted from the fact that Ukraine is fighting a medium- to long-term war on multiple fronts against a significantly larger and heavily entrenched foe. What’s more, the lack of a major Ukrainian land advance obscures the very real battlefield successes Ukraine has had in other theaters of the conflict—most notably in Russian-occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.
A crucial part of Kyiv’s long-term plan for the war is to push Russia out of the Crimean Peninsula and the rest of the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s coastline. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, headquartered at the Crimean port of Sevastopol, has been a critical component of Moscow’s war effort. Russian warships operating out of Sevastopol have enforced a blockade of Ukraine’s coastline and launched cruise missiles to rain hell onto Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
But over the last several months, Ukraine has achieved a series of startling victories in and around Crimea, including missile strikes against the Kerch Strait bridge and multiple daring attacks on the Black Sea Fleet itself—with major impacts on the Russians’ ability to operate on the peninsula and in the western Black Sea.
In September, the Ukrainians carried out a series of missile strikes against Russian naval assets in Sevastopol, including a landing ship, a submarine, and the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet itself—reportedly while several high-ranking commanders were inside. Some of these strikes were carried out using Storm Shadow cruise missiles recently supplied by Britain and France. The Ukrainians have also ratcheted up their strikes against Russian logistics, repair, and infrastructure hubs on the peninsula with the intent of degrading Russia’s ability to support its fleet. Earlier this month, Kyiv claimed responsibility for two further attacks on the Russian fleet, using a new type of sea drone to strike the Russian cruise missile carrier Buyan and carrying out a sabotage attack on the Pavel Derzhavin, a Russian patrol ship. These strikes came after the Ukrainians had methodically attrited Russian anti-missile defense structures in Crimea over the previous weeks.
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https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/20/ukraine-crimea-black-sea-counteroffensive-russia-fleet-navy-drones-war/
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