Russian infantry replacements from Vladivostok

Against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, marineforum documents current maritime events in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. As always these days, there is hardly any news that can be independently verified.

28 March 2022

+++ Russian infantry replacement from Vladivostok +++

On 21 March 2022, the Japanese Ministry of Defence reported four Russian landing ships moving through the northern Japanese straits on a westerly course a week ago. The Japanese destroyer "Shiranui" (Asahi-class) and maritime patrol vessel P-3C (Poseidon) reported the units "Nikolay Vilkov" (Alligator-class, 4,800 tonnes), "Oslyabya", "Admiral Nevelskov" and "Peresvet" (Ropucha-class, 4,500 tonnes) - in other words, the entire Russian Pacific Fleet's larger amphibious forces! The first two apparently passed the narrow strait between the main island of Honshu and Hokkaido on 15 March, coming from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka, and the next day the latter passed through this very Tsugaru Strait, heading for Vladivostok. It was assumed at the time that the relocated troops were to be loaded onto the railway there to replenish the losses of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. This is consistent with findings that two brigades of marines from Vladivostok and the Kamchatka Peninsula were set on their way westwards.

Landing of Russian naval infantry. Photo: MoD Moscow

24 March 2022

+++ Russian ship losses +++

Capers from grain freighters

At first there were reports from the population of Berdyansk that Russian tugboats had taken five freighters loaded with thousands of tonnes of grain on the hook and towed them from the pier out to sea into the Sea of Azov.

Space for supplies

Then, on Monday 21 March, the "Orsk", a 4,800 tonne landing ship of the Black Sea Fleet, arrived and docked at the now free pier. As the harbour is under Russian control, the press office of the Russian armed forces enthused on its website about the "unimagined possibilities" of supplying material and personnel for the southern front of the Russian "special operation" off the besieged city of Mariupol. There is also a video of the "Orsk" unloading armoured vehicles.

Watch the video on Twitter

Ten ships, each with 20 tanks or 40 armoured personnel carriers or armoured personnel carriers, alternatively 400 equipped troops, would take part in the operation over the next few days. Roughly speaking, that would actually be the bulk of the amphibious forces of the Black Sea Fleet (3 Alligator, 4 Ropucha) including the new arrivals from the Northern and Baltic Fleets (1 Gren, 5 Ropucha)!

The shipwreck

But things turned out differently: Today, 24 March 2022, one month after the start of the war, Ukrainian forces used a drone to strike a targeted blow against the resupply in Berdyansk. The video, probably from a webcam, shows two Ropuchas leaving the harbour basin in a hurry, both obviously with fires on the upper deck, behind them a burning alligator (Orsk?) with an open landing flap in the bow and exploding cargo (combat vehicles?). Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Defence, Hanna Malyar, confirmed the destruction of a ship in the port of Berdyansk later that day. Not a pretty picture - but probably reality.

Watch the video on Twitter

21 March 2022

+++ Russian admiral killed off Mariupol

The governor of the Crimean metropolis of Sevastopol regrets the death of the deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Andrei Nikolayevich Paliy, on Telegram, saying that he was "killed by the Ukrainian Nazis during the battles to liberate Mariupol".

Who was this admiral?

Paliy was no stranger: He was a naval officer who - despite being born in Kiev and becoming a Ukrainian citizen with the dissolution of the Soviet Union - refused to take the Ukrainian oath in 1993, opting instead to serve in the Russian Northern Fleet. He is said to have previously served on the nuclear-powered battle cruiser "Peter the Great" ("Pyotr Velikiy", Kirov class). Andrei Paliy was also deputy head of the Russian Nakhimov Naval Academy in Sevastopol in the annexed Crimea. According to Moscow media, Paliy was also deputy commander of the Russian armed forces in Syria in 2020.

An admiral on land?

So he was well versed in the dirty ways of war against inhabited areas. Why else would an admiral go ashore? Now he has presumably fallen victim to Ukrainian snipers in front of the encircled Mariupol, as have probably a good handful of other generals in other theatres of war in Ukraine.

Leading from the front - obeying necessity

Apparently, the Russian leadership is ordering high-ranking officers directly to the front. On the American TV channel CNN, General David Petraeus, Afghanistan and Iraq veteran and ex-CIA chief, explained the deaths of high-ranking staff officers by saying that Ukrainian hackers had unexpectedly disrupted the Russian chain of command. Generals and now also admirals would have to go to the front line to assess the situation on the ground and lead from there. There was no other way. That was not the doctrine, but what was going according to plan anyway?

21 March 2022

+++ Moscow warns of mines in the Black Sea

The harbour authority of Novorossiisk on the eastern edge of the Black Sea warns of Ukrainian floating mines off the ports of Odessa - and in the western part of the sea in general. The FSB estimates that around 420 mines have broken loose from their moorings in the storm of recent days and are now drifting freely, causing considerable disruption to shipping traffic. Trade in oil and grain products is therefore no longer possible.

Psychology of the mine

All nonsense, says the Ukrainian shipping authority, which is responsible for the western part of the Black Sea. This is "information piracy" in order to be able to blockade Ukrainian harbours under this pretext. If there really are mines floating around there, they would also prevent Russian landing operations. Unless the Russian navy knows exactly where these mines are "floating". And then there would also have to be minesweepers in the reported Russian landing forces - but this has not been the case so far.

17 March 2022

+++ Is Russia running out of precision ammunition - or is terror now the target?

The General Staff of Ukraine is currently noticing that the Russian aggressor is increasingly using unguided munitions when firing on civilian centres and their populations. The military command suspects two reasons for this. Firstly, unguided projectiles cause large-scale indiscriminate destruction - they terrorise the civilian population. Secondly, it is assumed that the Russian armed forces - especially the navy - have now used up most of their stocks of "Kalibr" and "Iskander" cruise missiles.

Background:

"Calibration" 3M14, or in the West also "Sagaris" SS-N-30, refers to the sea-based land-based cruise missile as the standard armament of modern warships of the Russian Navy. The Black Sea fleet is equipped with one 8-fold vertical launch silo equipped the units of the classes Karakurt (1), Buyan-M (4), possibly also with appropriate retrofitting Bykov (4). This also includes the four submarines of the Kilo-III-class, each of which 4 FK individually via the Torpedo tubes can eject. The FKs have a range of up to 2,600 kilometres, fly at Mach 0.8 and carry a 450-kilogram warhead; the FK is nuclear-capable.

"Iskander-K" is probably the one from the "Calibration" derived, vehicle-launched ground-to-ground cruise missiles for land forces.

Sea/land target cruise missile "Kalibr"

17 March 2022

+++ Grain trade via the Black Sea largely suspended

Baywa, Germany's largest agricultural retailer, reports that the Wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine largely come to a standstill have arrived. "There are currently zero exports from the ports in Ukraine, nothing is leaving the country," says the head of grain trading at the Munich-based company. Only from Russia is export activity still recognisable to a very limited extent. Wheat trade via the Black Sea covered around 30% of global demand.

17 March 2022

+++ Civilian ship losses in the Black Sea

According to a Reuters report, the Panamanian Maritime Administration is lamenting the loss of three cargo ships flying its flag in the Black Sea due to Russian missile fire. Two are said to be damaged but still afloat, while a third has sunk. On the first day of the Russian attack, the Panamanian bulk carrier "Namura Queen" was fired upon on an empty voyage off the Ukrainian coast, but was able to head for the port of Istanbul under its own power to assess the damage. Another Panamanian-flagged ship is the small freighter "Helt" with an Estonian owner, which sank off Odessa after an explosion on 2 March. Details of the incident vary from "shelling at anchor" to "capture" and "forced manoeuvring into a previously laid minefield" by Russian forces. It occurred just hours after NATO had issued a warning about the possibility of the northern sea lanes in the Black Sea being mined. A further ten ships registered in Panama are still in the sea area and some of them are being prevented from leaving the area by Russian forces.

Russian naval units also fired on the Moldovan chemical tanker "Millennial Spirit" on 25 February - the resulting fire destroyed equipment and rescue facilities, meaning that the crew were only able to swim to safety in life jackets.

A Turkish ship, the coal bulker "Yasa Jupiter", registered on the Marshall Islands, was fired upon and damaged during cargo handling in the harbour of Odessa.

Moldovan "Millenial Spirit" set on fire; Photo: MoD Ukraine

Small freighter "Helt" before sinking; Photo: twitter

16 March 2022

+++ Russian casualties after 3 weeks of war

The news portal Ukrayinska Pravda (pravda.com.ua) reports daily on the rising number of Russian casualties in the war against Ukraine. This information is of course not directly verifiable, at least not for the duration of the fighting. And, as expected, they do not match the information from Moscow. Estimates of Ukrainian losses are not to be found here either. But the Ukrainian figures on the attacker's losses are so shockingly high that even a restrictive assessment leaves only the description of these 21 days of war as a catastrophic, absolutely irresponsible and absurd battle of material and people. On the Ukrainian side, the civilian deaths and injuries as well as the material damage to the country's infrastructure have yet to be mentioned!

After that

++ about 13,800 Russian soldiers were killed and 1,000 captured,

++ Over 85 fighter planes, 120 helicopters and a dozen UAVs/drones were shot down,

++ almost 450 battle tanks and 1,500 armoured combat vehicles/armoured personnel carriers, plus well over 200 artillery pieces were rendered incapacitated,

++ around 1,000 trucks and 60 tankers, as well as 50 mobile air defence systems and 75 mobile multiple rocket launchers were lost,

++ there are even three ships/boats on this list.

These figures should be read with caution! But a comparison with today's Bundeswehr stocks alone is enough to give you an idea of the scale of these losses.

Source: see above - Spiegel-online also refers to this.

15 March 2022

+++ Ship convoy of 14 units approaches Odessa from the south

Ukrayinska Pravda reports as of 7 p.m. local time that, according to the military commander of Odessa, the local population has been subjected to an air and sea offensive since the morning. Around 90 rounds of heavy weapons were fired in 14 hours, which are said to have resulted in two casualties.

According to military analysts, midday satellite images show three groups of ships in the Black Sea consisting of 14 units of significant size heading north towards Odessa

Northern group: 3 larger landing ships type Ropucha, 2 fishing vessels (possibly tugs or minesweepers)

middle group: 4 FK frigates

southern group: 1 cruiser Moskva, 2 landing ships type Alligator, 1 landing ship type Morgunov

14.03.2022

+++ Russian drone apparently crashed in Romania

The AP news agency reports that a Russian-made unmanned aerial vehicle has crashed in northern Romania (Bistritz-Nassau county). It is the second such incident within a few days in the NATO area. According to the "Defence Romania" portal, which claims to have analysed images of the wreckage and regional media reports, it is said to be an Orlan 10 surveillance and reconnaissance drone, a medium-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed for the Russian armed forces. With a wingspan of just over 3 metres and a weight of 12.5 to 16.5 kilograms depending on the equipment, the drone can be used for various missions, including search and rescue missions, for training purposes, as a jammer, for radio signal detection and for tracking targets in difficult terrain. As the aircraft apparently had no markings, "the origin of the aircraft could not be clarified and its owner could not be identified", according to the Cluj County Public Prosecutor's Office.

+++ Crash also in Croatia

A drone that crashed near the Croatian capital Zagreb last week was significantly larger and heavier. It was a Tupolev Tu-141 "Strizh" aircraft. The 14-metre-long and more than six-tonne drone from Soviet production in the 1970s crashed into a park on Thursday evening (10.03.2022) around six kilometres from Zagreb city centre and just 200 metres from a residential area. This obsolete drone was also in the arsenal of the Ukrainian armed forces. Following the crash of the reconnaissance device, which may have been launched from Ukrainian territory, Croatia's prime minister called for better cooperation within NATO.

12 March 2022

+++ Russian troops appear to be pushing from Crimea towards Odessa (bypassing Mykolaiv)

+++ Russian airstrikes spread to western Ukraine, targeting an airbase (which also houses the International Peace and Security Centre) near Lviv and a military installation next to the Polish border

+++ Russia is apparently increasingly attacking agricultural infrastructure, silos, grain silos and food warehouses in order to disrupt Ukraine's food supply

+++ Finland reports interference and "unusual disturbances" with GPS signals from commercial aircraft near Kaliningrad and close to its eastern border with Russia

+++ The Italian police in Trieste have confiscated the 143 metre long superyacht "Sailing Yacht A" belonging to the Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko (owner of the fertiliser manufacturer EuroChem Group and the coal company SUEK)

+++ After Lloyds Register, the Norwegian ship certifier DNV is also handling the Russian business

07 March 2022

+++ Russian Black Sea Fleet ship hit during a missile mission?

On 7 March 2022, the Ukrainian naval command announced in a preliminary message on social media that a ship from the Russian Black Sea Fleet had been hit during a missile mission as part of the defence of port facilities in the Odessa region and had then withdrawn. The vessel in question is said to have been the heavy patrol boat "Vasily Bykov" (type ship project 22160, 94 metres, 1,500 tonnes). Although this class only carries a 57mm gun on the forecastle, it is said to be modular and can also be equipped with land-based cruise missiles. The footage shows an exchange of fire from and to sea, possibly from a land-based artillery/FK platform. The material is in no way unambiguous: the first sequence obviously does not show the Russian OPV, but a burning merchant ship by day, the second sequence is a night shot of a firefight - with emotional value, but without evidential character.

Ukraine: land-sea battle; photo: mil.in.ua

Heavy patrol boat Bykov class "Vasiliy Bykhov"; Photo: Michael Nitz

More on Twitter 

3 March 2022

+++ On 3 March, the Ukrainian navy sank its flagship "Hetman Sagaidachny" itself.

The 3,500-tonne displacement Krivak III-class ship was originally built at a shipyard in Kerch on the east coast of the island of Crimea as the last of the eight Krivaks intended for the Soviet Coast Guard and was put into Ukrainian service in 1993. The 30-year-old frigate was undergoing repairs in one of the three large shipyards in the harbour city of Mykolaiv when the commander received the order to open the valves and detonate an explosive charge. This was to prevent it from falling into the hands of the advancing Russian troops and being exploited for propaganda purposes, even though it was not currently operational. The Ukrainian defence minister has confirmed this approach.

"Hetman Sahaidatschnyj" after the self-sinking, photo: Олександр Ліпатніков - Own work (Wikipedia)

26 February 2022

+++ On 26 February 2022, the Ukrainian rescue ship "Saphir" was captured by Russian units of the Black Sea Fleet

According to reports by RBC-Ukraine (Ukrainian news agency) and Ukrayinska Pravda, which are based on a note from the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ukrainian rescue ship "Saphir" was captured by Russian units of the Black Sea Fleet on 26 February 2022, transferred to Sevastopol and seized there. The incident is said to have taken place in connection with the shelling, occupation and capture of survivors of the Ukrainian naval station on Snake Island (Zmiinyi, according to legend also the burial place of Achilles, the tragic hero of the Trojan War) just twenty nautical miles east of the Danube Delta. The civilian-crewed ship is said to have been on a humanitarian mission, possibly to rescue the island's crew. There is no longer any radio contact with the ship. Ukraine has reported that Russia has violated international maritime law and the Paris Declaration on the Law of the Sea with this action.

Rescue ship SAPHIR, Ukraine; Photo: ukrayinska pravda

25 February 2022

+++ On 24 February 2022, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian reports, units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet occupied the isolated island.

There are only a few islands in the Black Sea. One of these is the small Snake Island (Zmiinyi), located around twenty nautical miles east of the Danube delta and measuring only around 250 metres in a square, as well as a lighthouse, a few antenna masts and a few buildings. It was not until the beginning of 2000 that the disputed affiliation to Ukraine was settled amicably with Romania. It is strategically important for Ukraine because its possession secures Ukraine corresponding rights to mineral resources and control of coastal maritime traffic.

According to Ukrainian reports, on 24 February 2022, the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet surrounded the isolated island, radioed the border guard crew there to surrender and, upon their refusal, bombarded the island with artillery fire from the ship's guns. It has not been verified whether Russian naval aviation forces were also involved in the bombardment. The 13 members of the border guard troops were killed, it was initially reported for a good three days, until Russian media reported on the destruction of all facilities on the island and the internment of all 82 (!) surviving islanders in Sevastopol. They had to give up their defence because they had run out of ammunition. According to Ukrainian media, the Russian units involved were the guided missile cruiser "Moskva" (Slava class, project 1164, 11,800 tonnes, in service since 1982) and the "Vasily Bykov", type ship of the Bykov class (project 22160, 1,300 tonnes, in service since 2018). A video (rtl-news) shows the clearly recognisable cruiser just off the island.

It was certainly an unequal battle. It was initiated with the anonymous radio message: "This is a Russian warship. I suggest you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary casualties. Otherwise we will open fire." After a brief consultation on the choice of words, the island replied: "Russian warship, f*** you!". This recorded and published response went viral on social media. The subsequent interruption of the radio connection to the island and the lack of information gave rise to the interpretation that the border guards had died a hero's death.

Here is the link to the RTL video