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Russia has withdrawn the last warship of the Black Sea Fleet from Crimea, a Ukrainian navy spokesman said.
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According to a Ukraine expert, the withdrawal shows how empty Russia’s red lines and nuclear threat are.
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Peter Dickinson said it shows that when faced with opposition, Putin will likely back down.
The “humiliating” withdrawal of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from Crimea has exposed the emptiness of the country’s red lines, a military observer said.
Peter Dickinson, the editor of the Atlantic Council’s online publication UkraineAlert and editor-in-chief of Business Ukraine Magazine, made the analysis in an Atlantic Council blog post on Tuesday.
“The Russian navy’s willingness to withdraw from its supposedly sacred home bases in Crimea has made a mockery of Moscow’s so-called red lines and exposed the hollowness of Putin’s nuclear threats,” he said.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and used the naval base in Sevastopol as the headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet.
But Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in a Facebook post after Earlier this week we reported that Russia had withdrawn its last Black Sea Fleet warship from Crimea.
“Remember this day,” he wrote.
The Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also said in a Telegram after Tuesday that there were no more Russian naval vessels in the waters.
Ukraine has launched a heavy attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet using aerial drones, sea dronesand anti-ship missiles.
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian military claimed having destroyed a third of the fleet, and in March the British Ministry of Defence explained the Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive.”
Dickinson said Russia’s response to the “mounting setbacks” in the Black Sea runs counter to the Western narrative that a “cornered and defeated” President Vladimir Putin could resort to the “most extreme measures,” including the use of nuclear weapons.
“In fact, he responded to the humiliating defeat of the Black Sea Fleet by quietly ordering his remaining warships to withdraw,” Dickinson wrote.
Some in the West have expressed concern that Russia could escalate the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders, or even launch military operations. nuclear weapons on the battlefield, when the red lines were crossed.
It is a concern that has played a central role in the amount and type of military aid given to Ukraine.
Recently there have been to assure among some Ukrainian allies about how Russia might respond to lifting restrictions on weapons they have supplied that are being used to attack targets inside Russia itself.
But Dickinson said the overwhelming evidence of what happened in the Black Sea confirms that “when faced with determined opposition, Putin is far more likely to back down than escalate.”
“The West’s fear of escalation is Putin’s most effective weapon,” he added. “It allows him to limit the military aid reaching Kiev, while at the same time preventing Ukraine from striking back at Russia.”
This, he said, “is slowly but surely preparing the way for the inevitable Russian victory in a long war of attrition.”
Read the original article at Business insider
