Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with The Economist that one of Ukraine's main goals this year will be to weaken Russia's position in Crimea and the Black Sea.
Calling Crimea and the related battle in the Black Sea “the center of gravity of the war.”
According to experts, events in the Black Sea periodically remind us of its strategic importance in the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine.
And it was the successful actions in the Black Sea in 2023 that became the most significant achievement of our country in this war.
In particular, an authoritative American historian, specialist on Ukraine, professor at Yale University, Timothy Snyder, notes that the Ukrainians, “to everyone’s surprise,” managed to contain the Russian Black Sea Fleet and open a corridor for commercial grain trade.
“Ukraine won a large-scale naval victory without having its own navy,” Telegraph columnist and former British Royal Navy frigate captain Tom Sharp also noted.
He estimates that Russia's control over Sevastopol has become weaker in the past year, which has huge consequences for the Black Sea Fleet.
The thesis about the weight of Ukraine's naval victories is also confirmed by analyst Stephen Blank, a former professor of Russian national security studies at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the US Army War College, now a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Especially in the absence of sufficient airpower, Blank says, these victories reveal Ukraine's “strategic intelligence in coordinating military operations.”
Indeed, in 2023 a new geopolitical reality has emerged in the Black Sea. Russia, which at the beginning of the year began talking about the Black Sea almost as if it were its own, no longer fully controls any part of it.
Ukraine, which actually does not have its own military fleet in the Black Sea, was able to achieve such results thanks to the effective use of asymmetric warfare techniques. The main innovative development that allowed us to radically change the situation at sea in our favor was the use of “Sea Baby” sea drones, which were developed by the SBU, against Russian ships.
More precisely, “Sea Baby” is not just a naval drone, but a multi-purpose platform, which today is actively used for various tasks during joint operations of the SBU and the Ukrainian Navy.
Another sea drone “Kozak Mamay” is currently the fastest object in the Black Sea - it can accelerate to 110 km/h. It delivers 450 kg of explosives to any point in the Black Sea. This naval drone was designed to make a one-way flight and, while maneuvering under heavy enemy fire, touch the trigger mechanism to the enemy side.
As a result of the systematic successful use of maritime drones, Ukraine managed to achieve the withdrawal of part of the Russian fleet from Sevastopol, drive Russian ships to their home ports and resume the work of the grain corridor, which was operational not only for the transportation of grain.
The path to these victories began in 2022. When a brigadier general of the military counterintelligence of the SBU with the call sign “Hunter” arrived at a military training ground where flying drones were being tested. “And I see that “Starlink” is on a drone - on such a large cargo, as we say, “collective farmer”. And what does this give? Connection! You can control and transmit information over long distances. And if this can be done with a flying drone, then why can’t we make a boat and send it with a large amount of explosives to blow up Russian ships? This is a good chance to drive them away. I went to the head of the SBU Vasily Malyuk, and everything started to spin,” said the SBU brigadier general.
Also in the history of naval drones, Navy Commander Alexey Neizhpapa appeared at the very beginning. He selected a small team of specialists from among his subordinates - a consulting group.
It had two main tasks: to help designers and manufacturers of marine drones in calculations and, no less important, to teach drone operators to work with such an environment as the sea - to overcome storms, plot routes using old pilotage charts, and much more.
The first maritime drones were experimental designs that were constantly improved. Now in the new generation of these vehicles, the warhead has been increased several times and increased from 108 to 850 kilograms, they use the best communication systems, each of which costs more than 300 thousand dollars, the body is made of material invisible to radars, and many more innovative solutions are used.
This is exactly how our defenders plan to act in the Black Sea this year, creatively and innovatively. “We are striving to knock out all launch vehicles from the Ukrainian Black Sea waters. And then let's turn our attention to submarines. The SBU, the Navy, and the Air Force are already preparing very unexpected surprises for the invaders. The Russians have already withdrawn all serious ships from Crimea, but this will not help them. There should be no Russian fleet in Crimea at all,” states SBU head Vasily Malyuk.
