Russia Loses 26 Black Sea Fleet Vessels Since Start of War: UK

Ukraine has damaged or destroyed at least one-third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet since the start of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion, according to British defense officials.

Ukraine's navy does not have any large warships, but it has been punching above its weight by working with Kyiv's military and security agencies to deliver headline-grabbing blows to vessels in and around Crimea, the occupied peninsula that Kyiv has vowed to recapture.

Among them were strikes in March on two large landing ships, the Yamal and the Azov, a communications hub in Sevastopol, as well as other infrastructure facilities for the fleet.

Kyiv has also said it took out a Russian Kilo-class submarine in Crimea and landed ships and other vessels, like the missile-armed Tsiklon warship, in May.

The British Ministry of Defense (MOD) said on Sunday that the Russian fleet had been victim to Ukraine's maritime innovations, such as Neptune anti-ship missiles and Sea Baby and Magura V5 uncrewed surface vessels.

The MOD update said that at least 26 Russian Navy vessels had been damaged or destroyed in the Black Sea region between February 2022 and June 2024. Meanwhile, the remaining Russian fleet has been pushed further east to Novorossiysk in Russia's Krasnodar region.

This has meant that Russia has lost control of a key part of the Black Sea, which is now open to high grain exports that had been shut off following the start of the war.

"Commercial shipping is now returning to near pre-war levels in the region," the MOD said in the update, which tends to emphasize Ukrainian gains and Russian losses.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

As Newsweek reported last week, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the United Kingdom's chief of the defense staff, said that Russia's naval forces in the Black Sea had been brought "to heel through a combination of drones and long-range missiles."

Meanwhile, Yevgeny Fedorov, a State Duma deputy from United Russia, described the impact of Ukrainian naval drones, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and missile strikes on the fleet.

"Where is the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation? It's gone! This is a fact of victory of the enemy," said Fedorov in a clip shared on X on Sunday by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko.

"Of course, the fleet's air defense systems will be working on the ships," Federov said, but the Russian fleet "as an operational mechanism does not exist on the Black Sea."

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