1/2 Not enough Bears: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is pulling out of Crimea
Putin can’t fight Ukraine and the silent struggle against Nato submarines as well
LEWIS PAGE
3 October 2023 • 3:18pm
Lewis Page
Russian Bear-F Tu-142 Maritime Patrol Aircraft intercepted by RAF Typhoon fighter. Putin can’t spare any of the big planes for the Black Sea, this time
On Monday, British military intelligence issued an update on the situation in the Black Sea. According to this, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is “struggling to deal with concurrent threats on the southern flank of the Ukraine war” and “fleet activities are likely relocating to Novorossiysk in the face of threats to Sevastopol”. Russia is now “attempting to use naval air power to project force over the north-western Black Sea”.
This is quite big stuff. It would seem that the Ukrainians have more or less pushed the Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol, its primary base, away to Novorossiysk on the other side of the Azov in pre-2014 Russia. Being able to use Sevastopol as a naval base is one of the main military reasons Russia needs Crimea. Another is to use it as a logistics hub, shipping in munitions and materiel for the land battle to the north.
It would seem, in the judgement of the British intelligence staff at least, that recent heavy strikes on Sevastopol – in which headquarters were blown up and docked warships damaged, perhaps beyond realistic repair – have made the port city untenable as a naval base.
That matters, because if the Black Sea Fleet can’t operate from Sevastopol its reach into the northwestern Black Sea, bordered by the Ukrainian southern coast with its still-Ukrainian harbours, is reduced. And that means that the Russian ability to blockade Ukraine, to keep ships from taking cargoes to or from those harbours, is degraded. Russia has withdrawn from the previous agreement which permitted Ukrainian grain exports, and is now attempting to cut them off.
In theory, Russian warships could simply operate to the south, and interdict traffic between Ukraine and Turkey’s Bosphorus strait, thus cutting Ukraine off from the wider world. But even on the high seas, warships can only legally interfere with ships of another flag state under certain circumstances (piracy, for instance). And Russian warships have no right to interfere at all with any ship inside another nation’s territorial waters.
This means that a ship staying within 12 miles of the coast is pretty safe all the way up the western Black Sea, as it is inside the territorial limits of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. Military action by Russia in their waters would be an act of war against a Nato nation.
It’s only when the ship is north of the Romanian border that it’s in Ukrainian waters, and considered fair game by the Russians. But it’s become clear that the warships of the Black Sea Fleet, understandably, don’t want to operate close to the Ukrainian coast: the fate of the cruiser Moskva, sunk last year by shore-based Ukrainian missiles, still stands as a warning.
Last week, the first grain ships reached the Bosphorus from Ukraine, travelling down the coastal corridor: their captains no doubt emboldened to make the run by Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol.
Now, with British intelligence assessing that not only can the Black Sea Fleet not operate close to the Ukrainian coast, it cannot even operate in safety from Sevastopol … it might seem that Russia is well and truly driven out of the western Black Sea.
But the same British update also sounds a note of caution. Russian warships may not be able to operate in the northwest, but the Black Sea Fleet also has its naval aviation units. In the Russian navy, these include shore-based aircraft as well as shipborne ones.
Most advanced militaries have long-ranging maritime patrol aircraft (MPAs), big planes able to range far over the ocean and detect (and in some cases, attack) shipping and submarines beneath. Russia has its powerful Tupolev Tu-142, the MPA version of the Tu-95 “Bear” heavy bomber. Nato calls the Tu-142 “Bear F” or “Bear J”, which means that in Western news reports it is often called a “bomber”, but it’s actually quite different in its weapons and capabilities. The Tu-142 dates from the 1960s, but a limited number of the big planes were overhauled and updated just a few years ago.
Just last month, British fighters scrambled to intercept a Bear-F and a Bear-J passing British airspace north of Scotland. The Tu-142s belong to the Northern and Pacific fleets, and are mostly based far from the Black Sea. In 2021, however, three of them were brought to the region as a response to the Black Sea Incident, in which Russia claimed the British destroyer HMS Defender had encroached on Crimean waters. Tu-142s had visited the Black Sea and conducted patrols previously.
But this time it seems there are no Tu-142s to spare. The Bear J has a crucial role in communications with Russian nuclear submarines, and as such probably fully employed at the moment. It would seem that there aren’t any Bear Fs that can be sent as reinforcements on this occasion either.
Thus the only MPAs the Black Sea Fleet has are a handful of ancient Beriev Be-12 flying boats dating from the 1950s. According to British intelligence, these are now carrying out maritime patrols from Crimean bases: but probably staying close to home focused mainly on incoming Ukrainian drone boat attacks, rather than probing dangerous Ukrainian airspace to the north and west.
Surprisingly good article for the telegraph
Defeated by a nation with no navy.
The telegraph has a very informative pod about the Ukraine war called Ukraine: The latest. It’s pretty in depth and informative. Very interesting.
There’s a fleet left? Best follow it wherever it goes and send it to meet the moskva
It’s too bad, they had a pretty sweet deal with Ukraine starting back in 1991, where they got to continue to use the old Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol.
I know it wasn’t always a smooth arrangement but it wasn’t too terribly expensive for Russia to peaceably lease a site on Ukrainian territory from Ukraine. At least compared to other, more expensive alternatives!
Hmm… I wonder what happened to that constructive, more-or-less stable arrangement.
I wonder who fucked it up so badly that now Russia will have even less presence in Crimea than they used to.
Hmm hmmm hmmm… Such a mysterious historical mystery. Will we ever know who caused this???
Goodbye Black Sea Fleet, we hardly knew ye.
HAHAHAHAHA a naval defeat from an enemy that has no Naval Ships is going straight into the history books as one of the biggest fuck ups in Russian history.
They even destroyed a submarine 😂
Had no respect for the invaders before this and have even less now. Because if there’s one thing I never do, it’s pull out.
Russia is definitely going down in miltary history as the first country to be loosing a naval battle that’s against a smaller country who doesn’t even have a navy of their own and their closest thing to one are suicide drones. First Russia lost their flagship which was the Moskva, then a missle strike took our both a major submarine and I believe a transport ship, then came the missle strikes on their naval HQ and now they are pulling out of an area in which should be a safe zone for them. Russia’s performance is in that zone where they are going down in history for firsts and the only comparison for it would be Case Red level when it came to France’s performance.
It’s only the beginning…
In short
basic radar at that range isnt basic and to turn those of for extended period just to scan a mostly empty expanse of water is just asking for them to be located and destroyed by the UAF.
Satellites – yes, but too few and not advanced enough for real time actionable intelligence gathering more valuable than other uses for the limited capacity Russia possesses.
Scout Plane – that would be the Bear aircraft or the extremely dated Beriev. Similarly, unlike the US, extremely long range UAVs like the Global Hawk are both extremely expensive and reliant on aforementioned advanced, large numbers of satellites to effectively control over the horizon.
Boats – if the Moskva, which was designed to deal with advance anti ship systems is resting at the bottom of the Black Sea and $300MM submarines loitering in shallow waters is a good way to lose another one…
The Black Sea fleet can go fuck itself all the way back to Russia.
Is this the Tavria killing ground, on the approach to Tokmak, about which Ukraine has been posting very high Russian equipment and casualty numbers?
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Defeat.
So premature evacuation then
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back no more
What’d you say?
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back no more….
16 comments
1/2 Not enough Bears: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is pulling out of Crimea
Putin can’t fight Ukraine and the silent struggle against Nato submarines as well
LEWIS PAGE
3 October 2023 • 3:18pm
Lewis Page
Russian Bear-F Tu-142 Maritime Patrol Aircraft intercepted by RAF Typhoon fighter. Putin can’t spare any of the big planes for the Black Sea, this time
On Monday, British military intelligence issued an update on the situation in the Black Sea. According to this, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is “struggling to deal with concurrent threats on the southern flank of the Ukraine war” and “fleet activities are likely relocating to Novorossiysk in the face of threats to Sevastopol”. Russia is now “attempting to use naval air power to project force over the north-western Black Sea”.
This is quite big stuff. It would seem that the Ukrainians have more or less pushed the Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol, its primary base, away to Novorossiysk on the other side of the Azov in pre-2014 Russia. Being able to use Sevastopol as a naval base is one of the main military reasons Russia needs Crimea. Another is to use it as a logistics hub, shipping in munitions and materiel for the land battle to the north.
It would seem, in the judgement of the British intelligence staff at least, that recent heavy strikes on Sevastopol – in which headquarters were blown up and docked warships damaged, perhaps beyond realistic repair – have made the port city untenable as a naval base.
That matters, because if the Black Sea Fleet can’t operate from Sevastopol its reach into the northwestern Black Sea, bordered by the Ukrainian southern coast with its still-Ukrainian harbours, is reduced. And that means that the Russian ability to blockade Ukraine, to keep ships from taking cargoes to or from those harbours, is degraded. Russia has withdrawn from the previous agreement which permitted Ukrainian grain exports, and is now attempting to cut them off.
In theory, Russian warships could simply operate to the south, and interdict traffic between Ukraine and Turkey’s Bosphorus strait, thus cutting Ukraine off from the wider world. But even on the high seas, warships can only legally interfere with ships of another flag state under certain circumstances (piracy, for instance). And Russian warships have no right to interfere at all with any ship inside another nation’s territorial waters.
This means that a ship staying within 12 miles of the coast is pretty safe all the way up the western Black Sea, as it is inside the territorial limits of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. Military action by Russia in their waters would be an act of war against a Nato nation.
It’s only when the ship is north of the Romanian border that it’s in Ukrainian waters, and considered fair game by the Russians. But it’s become clear that the warships of the Black Sea Fleet, understandably, don’t want to operate close to the Ukrainian coast: the fate of the cruiser Moskva, sunk last year by shore-based Ukrainian missiles, still stands as a warning.
Last week, the first grain ships reached the Bosphorus from Ukraine, travelling down the coastal corridor: their captains no doubt emboldened to make the run by Ukrainian attacks on Sevastopol.
Now, with British intelligence assessing that not only can the Black Sea Fleet not operate close to the Ukrainian coast, it cannot even operate in safety from Sevastopol … it might seem that Russia is well and truly driven out of the western Black Sea.
But the same British update also sounds a note of caution. Russian warships may not be able to operate in the northwest, but the Black Sea Fleet also has its naval aviation units. In the Russian navy, these include shore-based aircraft as well as shipborne ones.
Most advanced militaries have long-ranging maritime patrol aircraft (MPAs), big planes able to range far over the ocean and detect (and in some cases, attack) shipping and submarines beneath. Russia has its powerful Tupolev Tu-142, the MPA version of the Tu-95 “Bear” heavy bomber. Nato calls the Tu-142 “Bear F” or “Bear J”, which means that in Western news reports it is often called a “bomber”, but it’s actually quite different in its weapons and capabilities. The Tu-142 dates from the 1960s, but a limited number of the big planes were overhauled and updated just a few years ago.
Just last month, British fighters scrambled to intercept a Bear-F and a Bear-J passing British airspace north of Scotland. The Tu-142s belong to the Northern and Pacific fleets, and are mostly based far from the Black Sea. In 2021, however, three of them were brought to the region as a response to the Black Sea Incident, in which Russia claimed the British destroyer HMS Defender had encroached on Crimean waters. Tu-142s had visited the Black Sea and conducted patrols previously.
But this time it seems there are no Tu-142s to spare. The Bear J has a crucial role in communications with Russian nuclear submarines, and as such probably fully employed at the moment. It would seem that there aren’t any Bear Fs that can be sent as reinforcements on this occasion either.
Thus the only MPAs the Black Sea Fleet has are a handful of ancient Beriev Be-12 flying boats dating from the 1950s. According to British intelligence, these are now carrying out maritime patrols from Crimean bases: but probably staying close to home focused mainly on incoming Ukrainian drone boat attacks, rather than probing dangerous Ukrainian airspace to the north and west.
Surprisingly good article for the telegraph
Defeated by a nation with no navy.
The telegraph has a very informative pod about the Ukraine war called Ukraine: The latest. It’s pretty in depth and informative. Very interesting.
There’s a fleet left? Best follow it wherever it goes and send it to meet the moskva
It’s too bad, they had a pretty sweet deal with Ukraine starting back in 1991, where they got to continue to use the old Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol.
I know it wasn’t always a smooth arrangement but it wasn’t too terribly expensive for Russia to peaceably lease a site on Ukrainian territory from Ukraine. At least compared to other, more expensive alternatives!
Hmm… I wonder what happened to that constructive, more-or-less stable arrangement.
I wonder who fucked it up so badly that now Russia will have even less presence in Crimea than they used to.
Hmm hmmm hmmm… Such a mysterious historical mystery. Will we ever know who caused this???
Goodbye Black Sea Fleet, we hardly knew ye.
HAHAHAHAHA a naval defeat from an enemy that has no Naval Ships is going straight into the history books as one of the biggest fuck ups in Russian history.
They even destroyed a submarine 😂
Had no respect for the invaders before this and have even less now. Because if there’s one thing I never do, it’s pull out.
Russia is definitely going down in miltary history as the first country to be loosing a naval battle that’s against a smaller country who doesn’t even have a navy of their own and their closest thing to one are suicide drones. First Russia lost their flagship which was the Moskva, then a missle strike took our both a major submarine and I believe a transport ship, then came the missle strikes on their naval HQ and now they are pulling out of an area in which should be a safe zone for them. Russia’s performance is in that zone where they are going down in history for firsts and the only comparison for it would be Case Red level when it came to France’s performance.
It’s only the beginning…
In short
basic radar at that range isnt basic and to turn those of for extended period just to scan a mostly empty expanse of water is just asking for them to be located and destroyed by the UAF.
Satellites – yes, but too few and not advanced enough for real time actionable intelligence gathering more valuable than other uses for the limited capacity Russia possesses.
Scout Plane – that would be the Bear aircraft or the extremely dated Beriev. Similarly, unlike the US, extremely long range UAVs like the Global Hawk are both extremely expensive and reliant on aforementioned advanced, large numbers of satellites to effectively control over the horizon.
Boats – if the Moskva, which was designed to deal with advance anti ship systems is resting at the bottom of the Black Sea and $300MM submarines loitering in shallow waters is a good way to lose another one…
The Black Sea fleet can go fuck itself all the way back to Russia.
Is this the Tavria killing ground, on the approach to Tokmak, about which Ukraine has been posting very high Russian equipment and casualty numbers?
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Defeat.
So premature evacuation then
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back no more
What’d you say?
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back
No more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road, Jack, and don’t ya come back no more….