Russian submarines pushed out of the Black Sea

At the beginning of the war against Ukraine, the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation had six conventional submarines of the Varshavyanka class (Project 636.3, Improved Kilo). Two boats ("Novorossiysk", "Krasnodar") were transferred to the Mediterranean before the start of the war and have not yet been able to return to the Black Sea, while "Rostov-on-Don" was presumably irreparably damaged by a Ukrainian Storm Shadow FK in dry dock in Sevastopol in September 2023. According to Ukrainian sources, the three remaining submarines are now believed to be in the Sea of Azov, where they cannot be located by Ukraine. Out of range of Ukrainian drones, they are deploying their weapons load of 4 to 8 Kalibr land-based cruise missiles against targets in Ukraine from there. The base is likely to be Novorossiysk, where the operational part of the Black Sea Fleet withdrew after finally leaving the port of Sevastopol in mid-July last year.

It cannot be ruled out that the old Kilo-class boat "Alrosa", which is also stationed in Sevastopol and is a good 30 years older and has actually already been written off, has been retrofitted for the use of modern cruise missiles.

In mid-August 2024, news emerged of a Kilo submarine being sunk by a missile hit in the harbour of Sevastopol - it is unclear whether this was the "Rostov-on-Don", which had been restored to floating condition, or a dummy.

During the Russian Navy Day celebrations, the fleet said that its surface and submarine units had so far successfully deployed 200 cruise missiles against targets in Ukraine. This is difficult to verify, as Ukraine claims to have launched the vast majority of these missiles.