![]() “It’s important because one less area, one less direction from which the rockets are flying in,” said Blusiewicz, “the easier it is for the Ukraine missile defense to track these missiles and shut them down.” TagsĬopyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. “Since Russia is not able to successfully, it goes to show that it doesn’t have this technological supremacy that will allow them to blockade Ukraine indefinitely,” he said, arguing it also shows Russia is “not a superpower.”Īnd Russia is no longer able to launch cruise missiles from ships from Sevastopol and the western parts of the Black Sea. He explained defeating Russia’s naval blockade and crippling its naval power threatens logistics and supply lines, which could weaken Moscow’s military strength in the long term. While battleground gains typically earn more recognition, naval supremacy is one of the most important factors in war, said Tomasz Blusiewicz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. ![]() ![]() So that’s why I think that the real effects here are psychological.” “But overall, the Black Sea Fleet isn’t that strategically important. Matthew Schmidt, associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven, said the attacks also indicate Ukraine has “really good intelligence inside the Russian military,” pointing to the late December strike taking out Russian drones that could have been used to strike Ukraine. Ukraine has managed to defeat a large Russian naval force through a savvy use of drones and missiles.īritish Storm Shadow long-range missiles, provided in early 2023 to Ukraine, enabled destructive strikes, while the Ukrainians wielded small drone boats for more covert operations. “In addition to forcing Putin’s fleet to retreat, Ukraine’s attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea have also significantly weakened the logistical networks that are essential for the resupply of the Russian army in southern Ukraine,” Goncharenko wrote for the Atlantic Council. In the early days of the war, Ukraine secured its hold on Odesa, a Black Sea port city in southern Ukraine, and sunk the Russian flagship the Moskva. Ukraine has maintained an edge in the waters of the Black Sea since the war began in February 2022 - and Kyiv does not have a naval force, let alone one the size of the Russian fleet. … Besides practically reopening the Black Sea, they’ve taken out Russia’s navy and pushed them out for the most part. “They literally shifted the balance in the Black Sea. “This is huge,” said Olga Lautman, nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Zelensky has made the Black Sea victories a central part of his pitch to Western allies and supporters in the past couple of months - a sign of Ukrainian strength after the ground counteroffensive launched in June largely failed, delivering a stalemate on the frontlines of eastern Ukraine. “Ukraine won in the Black Sea,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a trip to Washington last month. The maritime success also opened a corridor for Ukraine to move grain shipments in defiance of Russia’s decision last summer to cancel an export deal, an economic and symbolic victory in the war.
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