Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ‘Sitting Ducks’ as Ukraine Sinks Submarine

In the wake of Ukraine destroying one of Russia’s few submarines in the Black Sea, Moscow’s choices about how to move its remaining vessels are limited—and at the mercy of NATO member Turkey.

Unless Russia keeps its handful of submarines in the Black Sea constantly moving, “they will essentially just be sitting ducks” for future Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, Davis Ellison, an analyst with the Netherlands-based Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, told Newsweek.

Ukraine said on Saturday that it had destroyed Russia’s Rostov-on-Don submarine in the southern Crimean port city of Sevastopol in a missile strike, the latest reported casualty among Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine previously zeroed in on the Kilo-class submarine in a dramatic attack attributed to British-provided air-launched Storm Shadow missiles in September 2023. There was “significant damage” to the submarine before it was repaired and tested in Sevastopol, Kyiv said in a statement on Saturday.

Ukraine likely used U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, missiles in the strike, the U.K. government said on Wednesday.

The British Defense Ministry said late last month that at least 26 Russian Navy vessels had been damaged or destroyed in the Black Sea region between February 2022 and June 2024.

Ukraine’s navy does not have any large warships, but has worked alongside the other branches of Kyiv’s military and security agencies to menace Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine has wielded homegrown naval drones, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and long-range missile strikes to target vessels and key facilities, partly on the annexed Crimean peninsula that Moscow has controlled for a decade, and at the Novorossiysk base in mainland Russia.

Kyiv has succeeded in forcing the Black Sea Fleet to largely shift away from Sevastopol, further east in the Black Sea. Moscow has moved many of its vessels toward its Novorossiysk base, and satellite imagery indicates Russia is establishing another Black Sea base in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

Russia is thought to have three submarines remaining in the Black Sea. But access to the sea is controlled by NATO member Turkey, and has been since the early days of the full-scale war in Ukraine from February 2022. The Bosporus and Dardanelles straits are the only water ways offering up access to the Black Sea.

Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Ankara can limit vessels passing through the straits during times of war. Turkey has categorized all Ukrainian and Russian military vessels as “vessels of war” since the start of March 2022, noted Rebecca Lucas, senior defense and security analyst at the European branch of the RAND think tank.

“Russia’s submarines would undoubtedly fall under this categorization, so without explicit Turkish permission, the three remaining boats will not be able to enter the Straits,” Lucas told Newsweek. “Given the geography of the region, that permission would be the only way in or out of the Black Sea.”

“Barring Ankara’s agreement, I don’t think anything’s going to come in or out,” Ellison added.

However, a clause does prevent those warships returning to their registered bases from being stopped, Turkey has said.

The Sea of Azov, connected to the northeast edge of the Black Sea and the other option for the submarines to travel to, is thought to be too shallow for Russia’s submarines to comfortably stay put in the area.

Even if Russia could get its submarines away from the Black Sea, it may not serve its interests to move missile-armed vessels away from targets in Ukraine, Andriy Ryzhenko, a retired captain in Ukraine’s navy, told Newsweek.

Russia has one of the largest submarine fleets in the world, considered superior to its surface vessels. These are spread across Moscow’s fleets, deployed across the world.

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