Russia’s beleaguered Black Sea Fleet is posing an “increased missile danger” to Ukrainian cities as Moscow presses its nationwide winter blitz on the country, according to the military in Kyiv.
Russia has deployed three vessels capable of firing long-range Kalibr cruise missiles—one of Moscow’s most advanced weapons regularly used to bombard Ukrainian critical infrastructure, military, and civilian targets—to the Black Sea in recent days, Natalia Humenyuk, the head of the Joint Coordination Press Center of the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine, said on Thursday, per a Defense Ministry readout.
Humenyuk said two unnamed Russian submarines and the Admiral Makarov frigate were the three vessels deployed, which between them can carry 16 Kalibr missiles. “This is a very powerful signal of increasing missile danger in this direction,” the spokesperson said.
The Kalibr missile, she added, is “a high-precision weapon” which is “very often” used by the Russian military to strike at high priority targets. “The situation in the Black Sea is being intensified by the enemy,” Humenyuk said.
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
Kalibr-capable vessels firing from the Black Sea have been central to Moscow’s strategic bombing efforts throughout the full-scale war.
Newsweek cannot independently verify the report and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.
Russia is pressing its winter bombardment of Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure sites nationwide in a bid to freeze Kyiv into submission. With the second anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion looming, neither side appears willing to restart ceasefire negotiations.
On Friday morning, Russia launched one of the most intense aerial attacks of the war to date, firing 158 missiles and drones at targets all over Ukraine. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that as of early Friday morning, 12 people had been killed and 76 injured.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 27 Russian Shahed attack drones and 87 cruise missiles during the assault. Kyiv said no Kalibr missiles were used in Friday’s assault, but cruise missile launches from the Black Sea are expected in the coming weeks and months.
The Black Sea itself is a hot theater of the ongoing war. This week, Ukraine scored its latest success against Russia’s regional fleet when it destroyed the Novocherkassk landing ship while the Ropucha-class vessel was moored in the Crimean port of Feodosia.
The Oryx open-source intelligence website lists 13 destroyed and seven damaged Russian vessels since February 2022. Among them is the guided missile cruiser Moskva, which served as the Black Sea Fleet flagship until it was sunk by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles in April 2022.
The Admiral Makarov inherited the fleet’s flagship status after the loss of the Moskva. The former, though, soon faced peril of its own, surviving an attack by Ukrainian aerial and naval drones in October 2022 on the Black Sea Fleet home port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.
Andriy Ryzhenko, a retired Ukrainian naval captain and now a strategic expert at the defense and logistics consultant company Sonata, told Newsweek Kyiv will continue to hone its “combined arms” strategy of “missiles, maritime and air drones penetrating and destroying the most valuable Russian targets in the Crimean Peninsula.”
“In confined waters, use of any medium or bigger-sized vessel is very dangerous,” he said. “It’s easy to find, identify and destroy these big ships.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.