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18 September 2023

Ukraine and Russia in High-Stakes Battle for the Black Sea

Joshua Keating

Ukraine’s battle for the Black Sea is heating up.

In what Ukraine’s intelligence service described as a “unique operation,” the country’s special forces claimed to have captured two Russian-occupied oil platforms in the Black Sea on Monday. The platforms, known as the “Boyko Towers,” had been under Russian control since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Then, Wednesday morning, Ukraine launched its largest ever drone and missile attack on the Crimean city of Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian officials claimed to have struck a landing ship and a submarine, though the extent of the damage is unclear. Sevastopol has been hit numerous times since the war began, but if reports that a Kilo-class submarine was damaged are confirmed, it would mark a significant breakthrough for Ukrainian forces. Russia’s subs have been virtually untouchable since the beginning of the war.

These operations are the latest in a series of notable victories for Ukraine’s outnumbered and outgunned forces in the Black Sea. These accomplishments also include the sinking of the Russian fleet’s flagship, the Moskva, in April, 2022, the retaking of strategically and symbolically important Snake Island that June, and several strikes on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects occupied Crimea to Russia.

Despite these victories, Russia still maintains significant advantages in the Black Sea, a front in the war that is critical not only for Ukraine and Russia, but for the global economy as well.

Russia’s Black Sea advantage

Russia had an advantage in the Black Sea from the start. Prior to 2014, both countries maintained naval fleets in Crimea under a treaty signed in the 1990s. When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, they also took over about 75 percent of Ukraine’s fleet, leaving it reliant on what’s known as a “mosquito fleet” of mostly small patrol boats to defend its southern coast.

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