According to the state news agency TASS, the newly appointed commander Viktor Sokolow announced that it will receive twelve new ships as well as additional aircraft and land vehicles this year. The fleet is fulfilling all its tasks, he told a group of officers. According to the state agency RIA, Sokolov replaced the previous commander Igor Osipow on Wednesday.
Recently, several explosions in military facilities on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, annexed since 2014, where the fleet is stationed, caused a stir. It is said that aircraft in the fleet were also destroyed. Their flagship, the cruiser Moskva, had previously gone down in April – according to Ukrainian sources, it was sunk by a rocket attack. Two months later, the Black Sea Fleet withdrew from the strategically important Snake Island near the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.
Explosions apparently took a lot out of the fleet
According to an insider, the explosions at the Saki base in Crimea have severely damaged the Russian Black Sea Fleet. More than half of the fighter jets belonging to the fleet are no longer operational, says the western official. The naval forces would find it difficult to do more than a “coastal defense flotilla”.
They are also hampered in their ability to threaten the Ukrainian port of Odessa with amphibious assaults – military operations that use landing ships, but also airplanes and helicopters. The insider sums up that, overall, a virtual stalemate was achieved in the war. “The ground forces on both sides do not have the strength to launch effective offensives that would in any way materially change the course of the war.”
Source: Nachrichten
