Russia took three-quarters of Ukraine’s naval fleet when it annexed Crimea in 2014. Defense News put the figure at 75 percent, and the loss went further: most of the helicopters and the bulk of the country’s ship repair capacity went too. Seventy percent of naval personnel either defected or were dismissed. What stayed under Kyiv’s flag was a single frigate, and only because it happened to be at sea.
With Sevastopol Naval Base gone, the service, in the magazine’s words, “essentially needed to start from scratch.”
Rebuilding with NATO help
The years that followed were slow and modest. The United States, Britain and other NATO members guided the rebuild, and what emerged was a “mosquito fleet” of small boats meant to guard territorial waters and the coastline, not to fight a Russian squadron.
Ukraine also tied into the Black Sea Maritime Domain Awareness project, led by the United States and involving Georgia, Romania and Bulgaria. Washington committed five Island-class patrol boats through the Excess Defense Articles program, two delivered in 2018 and three more approved in 2019. It cleared the sale of up to 16 Mk VI patrol boats in June 2020, and in March 2021 the Pentagon approved a $125 million aid package that included two Mk VI boats, counter-artillery radars, satellite imagery and medical equipment.
Turkey was a second supplier. Ukraine ordered two Ada-class corvettes in a December 2020 deal, with the first due by the end of 2023. In July 2021 the navy took delivery of its first Bayraktar TB2 armed drone from Baykar.
A navy without a navy
Then came the February 2022 invasion, and the small fleet was not what changed the sea war. Missiles and unmanned boats did. RFE/RL reported in February 2024 that Ukraine had destroyed or seriously damaged about one-third of the Black Sea Fleet’s roughly 74 vessels.
The turning point came in April 2022, when Neptune anti-ship missiles sank the flagship Moskva, the largest Russian or Soviet warship lost since World War II. Later strikes leaned on sea drones, the MAGURA-V model in particular. A drone hit the heavy landing ship Tsezar Kunikov in February 2024. The Novocherkassk was reportedly sunk in December 2023, and a dry dock in Sevastopol used for repairs was also damaged.
Michael Petersen of the U.S. Naval War College told RFE/RL that “Ukraine has proven to be much more technologically and tactically innovative than the Russians.” Mike Plunkett of Janes said Russia “has gone from being the indisputable maritime power in the Black Sea…to being pinned back into the eastern portion.”
The pressure forced Russian ships to work farther from Ukraine’s coast, which weakened the blockade on Ukrainian ports and cut into Moscow’s ability to mount amphibious assaults. Russia still has teeth. Its Kalibr cruise missiles continue to reach Ukrainian targets from a distance.
Sources
- After 2014 decimation, Ukrainian Navy rebuilds to fend off Russia (Defense News)
- Ukraine Has No Navy. But It's Hammering Russia In The Black Sea (RFE/RL)
