Concrete pyramids line the Crimean shore, behind them a belt of trenches and bunkers. Satellite pictures taken in March, reported by the Daily Express, also showed stacks of “dragon’s teeth”, excavation equipment and piles of wood near the coast, a sign that the digging was still under way. Russia has turned a beach resort into a military position, and the question is what that position is now worth.
Why Moscow digs in
Start with Sevastopol. Russia has kept its Black Sea fleet headquartered in that Crimean port since 1793, according to DW. Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014, an act DW calls illegal, and DW describes the harbor as a rare deep-water port that stays usable for naval operations through winter. The sea is a springboard for Russian influence stretching to the Mediterranean and beyond, into the Middle East, North Africa and southern Europe, and it opens routes to Libya and to Syria, where Russia keeps a naval base at Tartus.
The shoreline works have a narrower purpose than they first appear. Analysts told the Express that, given Ukraine’s limited navy, the obstacles look more like a precaution than a response to any expected landing. Intelligence analyst Layla Guest told the BBC that “the fortifications are likely in place to deter any bold Ukrainian operation to attack Crimea via the sea rather than on land.”
The treaty that keeps NATO out
Outside powers face a legal wall as well. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey holds full sovereignty over the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the sole passages linking this sea with the Mediterranean. Only three NATO navies, those of Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, are permanently present in the sea. After Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ankara closed the straits to all warships, Russian and otherwise, which left the balance of naval power where it stood.
With NATO fleets shut out, the contest has been left to Ukraine and Russia.
Where the fleet has gone
Kyiv says it has done real damage. Ukraine says that by the start of 2026 it had destroyed or badly damaged roughly a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet, using drones and home-built missiles, even though it has no real navy. Its defense ministry counts the flagship Moskva among the losses, along with a submarine hit by missiles while sitting in dry dock at Sevastopol.
Newsweek reported that Ukrainian and Western officials say Russia responded by shifting much of the fleet out of Crimea to Novorossiysk, a secondary base farther from Kyiv’s reach. Satellite imagery later showed new defenses there, among them smaller decoy silhouettes drawn beside submarines.
Ukraine followed. In August 2026, its SBU security agency said “large-scale” attacks on Novorossiysk had damaged the frigates Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov, both carrying Kalibr cruise missiles, plus the patrol ship Vasily Bykov. Analysts at the satellite imagery provider Vantor said three frigates and a patrol ship were hit. Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev said several hundred drones struck the region, killing three people in Novorossiysk and damaging 60 residential buildings. Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted more than 500 drones over seven regions, Crimea and the Black Sea.
Sources
- The Black Sea's role in Russia's war on Ukraine
- Russia turns Crimea coast into Putin's fortress with trenches
- Ukraine Hammers Russian Fleet in Putin Black Sea Stronghold
