Ukraine 'Brought Russian Black Sea Fleet to Heel': Top UK Admiral

Ukraine has brought Russia's naval forces in the Black Sea "to heel," a top U.K. admiral has said, as Kyiv plugs away with attacks on Moscow's facilities and ships around Crimea.

"In the past year we've seen Ukraine—a country which barely has a navy—bring the Russian Black Sea Fleet to heel through a combination of drones and long-range missiles," Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the U.K. chief of the defense staff, said on Tuesday.

Ukraine's navy does not have any large warships, but has worked alongside the other branches of Kyiv's military and security agencies to menace Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine has effectively used innovative naval drones, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and missile strikes to target vessels and key facilities, partly on the annexed Crimean peninsula that Moscow has controlled for a decade, and at the Novorossiysk base in mainland Russia.

Kyiv says it has succeeded in taking out a Russian Kilo-class submarine in Crimea and several landing ships and other vessels, like the missile-armed Tsiklon warship in May.

Russia is thought to have moved many of its vital assets from the main base in the southern Crimean city of Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, further away from Ukraine's reach. Moscow is also thought to be establishing another base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Georgia, which is even further from Ukraine.

Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, the head of Ukraine's Navy, told Reuters earlier this month that Moscow was "losing" Sevastopol, adding: "Almost all the main combat-ready ships have been moved by the enemy from the main base of the Black Sea Fleet."

Russia has attempted to shield its bases from attacks by using barges, decoys and false silhouettes to trick or trip up Ukrainian drone operators, British intelligence has evaluated.

Moscow's Defense Ministry announced earlier this year that it would beef up the protection around its fleet with large-caliber machine guns to shoot at incoming naval drones before they strike Russian vessels.

A Ukrainian law enforcement source told Newsweek last week that Kyiv had attacked the Black Sea Fleet while it conducted exercises in western Crimea, damaging facilities belonging to a Russian coast guard base.

Yet although Russia's navy has "suffered significantly in the Black Sea," its overall naval force remained strong, and "Russian naval activity worldwide is at a significant peak," General Christopher Cavoli, the head of the U.S.' European Command, told U.S. lawmakers in April.

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