How AFU Managed To Hit Flagship Inside Main Black Sea Fleet Base?

• 30.10.2022, 20:14

The initiative at the Black Sea belongs entirely to Ukraine.

Defence Express Group military expert Volodymyr Zablotsky tried to explain to Radio NV how the Black Sea Fleet ships were attacked inside the main base in Sevastopol on October 29 and what losses Russia suffered.

- Let's try to figure out what has happened in Sevastopol. The occupiers write that it was the most massive drone attack. It seems there were nine flying drones and seven water-borne drones. What are we supposed to know about that? The Russians are talking about one damaged ship, other reports say there is more than one.

- You know, it's not self-respecting to believe the Muscovites.

I am monitoring the public pages (both ours and not ours), there are many videos, there is material to think about. Naturally, we have to wait for comments from the Ministry of Defence, but our assumption may turn out to be the following.

We are talking about a unique event, which will be no less significant in the history of this war than the liberation of Snake Island and the operation to liberate Kharkiv region.

We are talking about the first in the history of naval warfare combined naval and air [drone] attack on ships in the sheltered bay of a naval base in Sevastopol.

The uniqueness of this is that it was a remote attack - no humans were present. It was all done a hundred kilometres away from the object of the attack.

In general, history knows such cases when the fleet was attacked by the enemy at its bases. For example, the first Russian-Japanese war began in 1904, when Japan attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. In 1941, they repeated the trick and attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. It was a disaster there for the Americans.

That is, it is not a new method. But the means used are fully consistent with the postulates of the war of the future - the prospective war of the future, called the drone war.

What happened? During the night of October 28 to 29, targets in Sevastopol were attacked by a group of water-borne, and perhaps also underwater, and aerial drones. They arrived simultaneously. And the first attack of the surface targets occurred without any countermeasures from the Russians. They did not notice it, as evidenced by the absence of any security or lack of order, as always, in the Russian Navy and the Armed Forces in general.

The kamikaze surface boats came into the South Bay (this is far in the depths of Sevastopol Bay) and blew up two to four ships there. Until the last moment, they were transmitting data online to the operator via Starlink. That is, the operators were controlling it.

The enemy saw nothing, knew nothing, heard nothing. The first blown up ship caught fire, and then the second, then several more standing nearby. The Sevastopol coastal surveillance cameras show that it was a surprise attack and the explosions were very powerful.

We have discovered insider information. They write that according to a source in the fleet headquarters (the Russians write amongst themselves), the flagship of the 11356r project frigate Admiral Makarov was damaged.

- That is, this is the second flagship of the Black Sea Fleet to be hit by someone not known during this war.

- It is very badly hit. Polish sources, particularly Defence24, commenting on this event, said that probably a drone hit the Admiral Makarov. The first biggest explosion was a hit on the Admiral Makarov. The ship's control system, the battle information post and all the radars in general got disabled. It is no longer combat-ready, even if it stays afloat.

A lot of wounded and killed, probably - it was at night.

The source also writes that a transport ship was damaged, probably sunk. A boat sank as well. The minesweeper Ivan Golubets was also damaged. It, according to that Polish source, was also rammed into the stern by a kamikaze. And by the time of this insider report, it was still burning, i.e. there was a big fire. On it and on the frigate at the same time.

Lesser damage was sustained by a large landing ship (name to be clarified), several support vessels. And also the fuel depot was destroyed, half-empty, it is stressed. But we should have said half-full, because all the fuel was burned. The Black Sea Fleet was left without fuel. And also the warehouses on the shore, which continue to burn. So there was something to burn, you know.

What can I say? The attack was well co-ordinated. We can assume that the water-borne drones acted under the cover of airborne drones, which diverted their attention, and attacked. Warehouses on shore were the work of the air drones, the naval drones couldn't have done that.

Conclusions we can draw. This clearly demonstrates that the initiative for naval activities in the Black Sea belongs entirely to Ukraine. This is already unambiguous. Not only on the shore, but also on the sea.

For the enemy, the appearance of the machines attacking Sevastopol came as a complete surprise: neither the delivery, nor the preparation, nor the launching of the machines were detected in time.

- You say that the flagship Admiral Makarov will not be combat-ready even if it stays afloat. What does this mean for the state of the Black Sea Fleet? How does it diminish the capabilities of their fleet? There was a report that it was from this particular ship that Vinnitsa was shelled.

- It wasn't just Vinnitsa that was shelled from this particular ship, but this is true. Its value: obviously it has less capability than [the cruiser] Moskva, in terms of fleet management and so on, but it is a carrier of Kalibr missiles. It has eight launchers, just like the other carriers. This was their main weapon in the terrorist war against Ukraine. So that is minus eight launchers [launchers] for sure already.

If the sunken boat turns out to be the Buyan, that's another minus eight launchers. That is to say, there have already been [eliminated] 16 - the possibility of an attack against Ukraine will diminish considerably.

And let's not forget the image losses. Destruction of the flagship inside the main naval base is already such a shame that Moscow will once again be changing the fleet commander.