Three Russian warships were hit in a single night at Novorossiysk, according to Ukraine’s SBU security agency. Two frigates, the Admiral Essen and the Admiral Makarov, were damaged in what the agency called “large-scale” attacks on the base, along with a patrol ship, the Vasily Bykov. Both frigates carried Kalibr cruise missiles, the SBU said. Newsweek reported the strikes in August 2026 and said it had asked the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
Novorossiysk was never supposed to be the dangerous place. It became the Black Sea Fleet’s refuge because Crimea stopped being safe.
Out of Sevastopol
Sevastopol, on the edge of Crimea, which the Kremlin annexed from Ukraine in 2014, was the fleet’s home. As the northwestern Black Sea grew more dangerous, Ukrainian and Western officials said, Russia shifted many of its ships toward Novorossiysk, a secondary base further from Kyiv’s reach. An analysis in Eurasia Review dated the main move to October 2023, when large parts of the fleet, including nearly all submarine operations, left Sevastopol.
The pressure had started long before. Ukraine had almost no navy when the full-scale war began in February 2022, and few Neptune anti-ship missiles. Even so, the Eurasia Review analysis argued, early missile hits on the cruiser Moskva, the landing ship Saratov, the Admiral Essen and the rescue tug Vasily Bekh forced Russian ships to keep their distance from the northwest Black Sea. That helped reopen sea routes around Odessa. Ukrainian naval drones came later. Their first effective use was an attack on Sevastopol port on October 29, 2022, followed by one at Novorossiysk on November 18, which hit several vessels including the Admiral Makarov.
A fleet that still fires
Ukraine said it had destroyed or seriously damaged about a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet by the start of 2026. Its Ministry of Defence counted the Moskva among the losses, together with a submarine struck by missiles in dry dock at Sevastopol.
The fleet is not finished, though. The Eurasia Review author noted that Russia’s navy kept the ability to concentrate its forces when it chose, and launched massed Kalibr salvos in November and December 2024. Mines and missiles can deter a fleet from operating in an area, the analysis said, but they cannot decisively defeat it the way another surface fleet would. And a ship tied up at a berth is easier to find. Satellite imagery showed new defenses at Novorossiysk, among them small decoy silhouettes drawn alongside submarines.
Krasnodar regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said several hundred drones hit the region in the August attack. Three people were killed in Novorossiysk, he said, and 60 residential buildings were damaged. Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones over seven regions as well as Crimea and the Black Sea.
Sources
- Ukraine Hammers Russian Fleet in Putin Black Sea Stronghold – Newsweek
- How Drones, Mines, And Missiles Contained Russia's Black Sea Fleet – Analysis – Eurasia Review
