Weird Black Sea ship movements raise questions about Russian fears

Ukraine may not have made a lot of progress on land during its recent counter-offensive but the country has been taking Russia to task on the Black Sea, and one weird incident at the start of March has left war analysts puzzled. 

Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk recently revealed one very interesting incident that saw a group of Russian ships near the Bosporus Strait act strangely. What was going on is still a bit of a mystery for Ukraine. 

"Recently, an interesting incident occurred when they sent two ship units to escort their vessels from the Bosporus. That doesn't happen often, only about once a month,” said Pletenchuk before going on to reveal more details. 

Photo Credit: Twitter @YorukIsik

“But at some point, they just turned around and headed back," Pletenchuk explained to the Ukrainian News outlet Unian according to Newsweek. What prompted the two ships to turn around is not known, but there are theories. 

Photo Credit: Twitter @YorukIsik

Pletenchuk speculated that the commander of the ships may have received information that they were in danger and went on to explain that the route they had taken in Turkish territorial waters was outside of the norm for Russia. 

“These vessels were forced to move along the Turkish border,” Pletenchuk explained to the Ukrainian news outlet, adding that the ships were hiding in Turkish territorial waters rather than taking a direct route to their destination. 

“Thus not taking the shortest route, which they would normally take, but instead fleeing to their hiding spots," Pletenchuk added, hinting that the vessels may have been hiding from Ukrainian naval drones, which dominate the sea. 

Business Insider’s Rebecca Roman noted Ukraine’s success in the Black Sea has been one of Kyiv’s “standout successes of the two-year-long war,” and much of the success is due to the country’s use of powerful new naval drones. 

The British Ministry of Defence reported on February 25th that at the outset of the war in Ukraine, Russia had the freedom to navigate throughout the whole of the Black Sea but Kyiv’s use of asymmetrical alternatives changed things. 

Russia was forced to reassess its appetite for risk and relocated its main operating area to the Eastern Black Sea. Persistent attacks on Russian naval assets have put Moscow on the back foot and made Russia far more cautious.

The British Ministry of Defence noted that “it is increasingly evident that the defensive posture adopted to mitigate against Ukraine's non-conventional approach to maritime warfare is not working as intended.”

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“At a strategic level, Ukraine's approach has denied Russia the ability to interfere with its maritime trade routes,” the defense ministry report explained. “Ukraine's momentum has allowed it to dominate the western Black Sea.”

Ukraine's domination of the Black Sea at the moment may explain why the two vessels traveling in Turkish territorial waters at the start of March were acting so strangely. They may have indeed been trying to avoid being attacked. 

On March 5th, the Russian patrol vessel Sergei Kotov became the latest ship to be sunk by Ukrainian naval drones in an attack that officials in Kyiv claim killed seven sailors and left the Sergei Kotov laying at the bottom of the Black Sea. 

"Right now this ship is on the seabed," Dmytro Pletenchuk said according to BBC News, adding that a Russian helicopter may also have been aboard the ship when it was sunk by Ukrainian naval drones. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons Main Directorate of Intelligence, CC BY 4.0

"There are no safe havens for Russian terrorists in the Black Sea and nor will there be," Volodymyr Zelesnky said on March 5th. Ukrainian intelligence reported that Sergei Kotov was destroyed by five Magura V5 sea drones. 

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