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Russia has withdrawn its last Black Sea Fleet warship from Crimea, a Ukrainian navy spokesman said.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 on Monday that the Russian patrol ship was “leaving our Crimea at this time”.
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It would mark the end of the Russian fleet’s presence on the peninsula since 2014.
Russia has withdrawn its last Black Sea Fleet warship from Crimea, according to a Ukrainian official.
Dmitry Pletenchuk, spokesman for the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the statement on Facebook publish on Monday.
“The last patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is leaving our Crimea at this time. Remember this day,” he said, for a translation by the state-affiliated Ukrainian media outlet Militarnyi.
The Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine made a similar comment in a telegram publish on Tuesday, saying there were no more Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Plenchuk did not name the ship, but in March he told Ukrainian TV that Russia had only one “losing” missile ship in the waters.
Pletenchuk and the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
If true, it could mark the end of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s presence around Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and used its Sevastopol Naval Base as the main headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine has repeatedly struck back in the region since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, destroying or damaging about half of the warships in the Russian fleet, including a submarine, according to publicly available information.
Earlier this year, Ukraine’s military claimed having destroyed a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Used aerial drones, maritime dronesand anti-ship missiles against the fleet and the Kerch Bridge, with often devastating effects.
In March, the UK Ministry of Defense declared the “functionally inactive” Black Sea Fleet.
The Ukraine campaign pushed Russian warships towards to remove to bases in the port cities of Feodosia on the other side of Crimea and Novorossiysk in Russia.
But even there, the Russian navy was attacked, with Ukrainian drones targeting the port of Novorossiysk in May.
The Russian navy has begun using the more protected Sea of Azov to fire missiles at Ukraine, considering it “safer” than the Black Sea, Pletenchuk said. told the Kyiv Independent last month.
According to Basil Germond, an international security expert at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s recent successes are not “anecdotal”.
“Ukraine is slowly but steadily gaining the upper hand in the Black Sea,” he told BI, adding that the Russian Black Sea Fleet “has lost control of the Black Sea.”
This, Germond said, is a “significant” problem for Russia: Warships are some of the most expensive military assets in a country’s arsenal and can take more than a decade to acquire and make operational.
And due to the Montreux Convention – an 87-year-old man agreement This limits what Russia and NATO can send to the Black Sea – Russia is not able to reinforce its fleet there with ships from the Baltic or Northern fleets, Germond said, forcing Russia to look for a better way to protect its naval assets in the waters.
“It is definitely a key objective now, as Russia cannot afford to lose more, which explains the frequent ‘relocation’ further away from Crimea,” he said.
Politically, Germond said these setbacks are a “blow” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia appears weak in Crimea, and this is highly problematic for the Putin regime, given the central role that 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
