Russians deployed a large number of missile carriers in the Black Sea: expert gives reason

On 14 September, the Russians deployed 16 ships simultaneously in the Black Sea, including seven Kalibr cruise missile carriers. According to Hromadske Radio on September 20, Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk stated that this was because the occupiers felt it was dangerous to remain at their base.

“The Russians are forced to maneuver in the Black Sea because the Azov Sea is certainly not a location where they are ready to deploy their combat units. This leaves them with the Black Sea. The Turkish Straits (i.e., the Bosphorus) are closed to the Russians under the Montreux Convention. Therefore, they have no choice but to maneuver within the Black Sea. However, their room for maneuver is limited due to the threat of Ukrainian naval drones and other assets. As a result, they have adopted the tactic of hiding at the Novorossiysk base. There must have been a serious reason for them to deploy such a large number of ships to the Black Sea», — Pletenchuk explained.

In his view, the deployment was not part of a military exercise, as exercises typically last longer. He also ruled out a change in tactics.

“It’s possible that this was done to urgently concentrate ship personnel. They likely believed that remaining at the base was more dangerous than venturing out to sea, even with the threat of Ukrainian drones. At sea, they took various measures to protect the group, including turning on GPS spoofing (a technology that causes devices to provide false information), effectively altering their GPS coordinates. In other words, they tried to secure themselves as much as possible», — Pletenchuk said.

He emphasized that the Russians have no other bases available in the region. Pletenchuk reminded that the Russians were forced to leave Crimea. At the same time the base in occupied Abkhazia lacks the capacity to accommodate these warships.

He also mentioned that the Russians have the option of relocating most of their ships from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, but they have not done so. According to Pletenchuk, such a move would signal the abandonment of the Black Sea Fleet.

“Thus, the occupiers are likely to follow their traditional path – the self-destruction of this fleet, whether by our hands or their own. But this is their tradition. In the mid-19th century, they fled to Novorossiysk in a similar fashion. The same occurred during the Second World War, when their leadership also retreated to Novorossiysk. That’s how the myth of the heroic defense of Sevastopol came about – it was actually just an abandoned garrison», — Pletenchuk remarked.

As a reminder, on 12 September, Russia attacked a ship carrying grain for Egypt in the Black Sea. The attack occurred immediately after the ship left Ukrainian territorial waters. Commenting on the incident, Pletenchuk noted that the vessel was traveling outside the Ukrainian grain corridor operating in the Black Sea and had entered open waters. He also stated that the missile used by the Russians to attack the grain ship had an error range of 50 kilometers.