Russia Loses One of Its Primary War Objectives

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, October 05, 2023

 

The Wall Street Journal revealed this morning that Russia has suffered a significant strategic setback in its war of conquest in Ukraine. At least, for the time being:

 

Russia has withdrawn the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet from its main base in occupied Crimea, a potent acknowledgment of how Ukrainian missile and drone strikes are challenging Moscow’s hold on the peninsula.

 

Russia has moved powerful vessels including three attack submarines and two frigates from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea that offer better protection, according to Western officials and satellite images verified by naval experts. The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

 

Preserving Moscow’s access to the deep-water port at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula was the foremost pretext cited by the Kremlin and its boosters when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.

 

After Viktor Yanukovych’s government collapsed amid mass unrest following his administration’s refusal to implement an integration plan with the EU endorsed by Ukraine’s parliament — unrest that devolved into violence — Moscow supposedly feared for the integrity of its agreements with Ukraine to preserve access to the base, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet. In 2010, Moscow extended its lease on the base into 2024 with an option to extend its basing rights into 2047. In addition to the naval assets moored in Sevastopol, Russia maintained a presence of at least 15,000 military personnel in the city. It was a critical stronghold.

 

Ukraine’s armed forces posed no threat to the base, as Kyiv’s undermanned response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of the peninsula demonstrated. Nevertheless, the Kremlin retailed the notion that this base was subject to imminent seizure by the post-Yanukovych government in Kyiv. Moscow’s paranoia might have been unjustified, but the Kremlin evaluation of Sevastopol’s strategic importance is hard to argue against. One of the imperial jewels of Russia’s Tsarist-era fixation with building a world-class navy, Sevastopol gained importance after the Syrian civil war prevented Russia from relying on the port it maintains in Tartus (a problem Russia remedied with its 2015 intervention in the Syrian conflict). It was and remains the primary locus from which Russia projects power into Southern Europe and the Mediterranean.

 

As this history and the Journal’s report suggest, Moscow has been diversifying its holdings in the Black and Azov Seas and the Mediterranean coast. It can relocate some of its blue-water assets, but not nearly all. In terms of capacity, Russia has access to few alternatives that rival its port at Sevastopol. The Ukrainian operations that have successfully disabled enough Russian naval assets to convince the Kremlin to abandon one of if not the most important strategic garrison in the region deals a significant blow to the efficacy of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.