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Russia has withdrawn its last Black Sea Fleet warship from Crimea, a Ukrainian navy spokesman said.
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Dmitry Pletenchuk said Monday that the Russian patrol ship “is leaving our Crimea right now.”
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It would mark the end of the Russian fleet’s presence on the peninsula since 2014.
Russia has withdrawn the last warship of the Black Sea Fleet from Crimea, a Ukrainian official said.
Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the statement in a Facebook post after on Monday.
“The last patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is now leaving our Crimea. Remember this day,” he said, according to a translation by the Ukrainian state news outlet Militarnyi.
The Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made a similar comment in a Telegram after Tuesday that there are no more Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea.
Pletenchuk did not name the ship, but in March he told Ukrainian television that Russia had only one “loser” missile ship left in the waters.
Pletenchuk and the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Naval Forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
If true, this could mean the end of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet presence around Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and used the naval base in Sevastopol as the headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine has repeatedly struck back in the region since Russia launched its large-scale invasion in February 2022, destroying or damaging about half of the Russian fleet’s warships, including one submarine, it said. publicly available information.
Earlier this year, the Ukrainian military claimed having destroyed a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Aerial drones have been used, sea dronesand anti-ship missiles against the fleet and the Kerch Bridge, often with devastating consequences.
In March, the British Ministry of Defence declared the Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive.”
The Ukrainian campaign forced Russian warships to pull back to bases in the port cities of Feodosia, on the other side of Crimea, and Novorossiysk, in Russia.
But even there the Russian navy has been attacked, with Ukrainian drones targeting the port of Novorossiysk in May.
The Russian Navy has begun using the better-protected Sea of Azov to fire missiles at Ukraine, deeming it “safer” than the Black Sea, Pletenchuk told the Kiev Independent last month.
According to Basil Germond, an expert on international security at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s recent successes are not “anecdotal.”
“Ukraine is slowly but surely gaining the upper hand in the Black Sea,” he told BI, adding that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet “has lost control of the Black Sea.”
According to Germond, this is a “significant” problem for Russia: warships are among the most expensive military assets in a country’s arsenal and can take more than a decade to acquire and make operational.
And thanks to the Montreux Convention – an 87-year-old agreement that limits what Russia and NATO can send to the Black Sea — Russia is unable to bolster its fleet there with ships from the Baltic or Northern fleets, Germond said, forcing Russia to look at how it can better protect its naval assets in the waters.
“It is now an absolutely important objective, as Russia cannot afford to lose any more. That explains the frequent ‘regrouping’ further away from Crimea,” he said.
Politically, Germond said these setbacks are a “blow” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia looks weak in Crimea and that is very problematic for Putin’s regime, given the central role Crimea plays in Putin’s imperialist narrative,” he said, adding: “The symbolic value of these successes should not be underestimated.”
Read the original article at Business insider
