Black Sea Fleet’s last safe haven has been penetrated by Kyiv’s forces (Sea of Azov).
Kyiv Post reports:
“On the night of June 8-9, the situation turned kinetic in those waters with Ukrainian naval drones entering Taganrog Bay, a narrow inlet abutting mainland Russia on the Azov Sea, and blowing themselves up next to a barge and a tugboat escorting it.
Neither vessel was seriously damaged, but the tugboat captain decided it was safer to return to the Russian port of Azov, the Russian news and information platform Baza reported. Russian milbloggers widely confirmed the attacks.
Ukrainian milbloggers claimed that on the same night, one of the Russian assault ships detached itself from the fleet’s main body and sailed into the Russian mainland port of Yeisk, on the other side of the Taganrog Narrows, and tied up. According to unconfirmed reports, more Ukrainian USVs attacked the warship, although the results are unclear.
The Ukrainian June 8-9 strikes around Taganrog and Yeisk most likely took place, within sighting distance of Russian warships at sea some 20-40 km away.
Hitting Russian bases more than 200 kilometers north of the Kremlin-controlled Kerch Strait, in waters the Russian navy theoretically totally owns, marked a new benchmark in the Russo-Ukrainian Naval War: The moment when the BSF’s last safe haven was penetrated by Kyiv’s forces.
Dmitro Plentenchuk, head of the Ukrainian military Center for Strategic Communications, in June 9 television comments, said that currently the only warships BSF commanders are willing to risk sending into the open waters of the Black Sea are submarines, usually two at a time from the four known to be operational.
“They go out on patrol periodically,” he said.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), in Friday comments to the government news agency Ukrinform, said Russian navy commanders selected the Sea of Azov for surface warship maneuvers because the open waters of the Black Sea have long been lethal for fleet operations, and that the Kremlin is attempting to “hide” ships in waters out Kyiv’s reach. Kyiv’s intention is to strike wherever the BSF retreats, and hunt down the rest, he said.
“They are trying to hide the big ships, so we are going after the smaller ones,” Yusov said. “We are going to keep hunting.”
On June 6, Ukrainian USV penetrated into Pankse Lake, an almost totally-landlocked bay on the northwestern shore of the Crimean Peninsula, rammed and destroyed a Russian naval tugboat named Saturn.
On May 30, special operations teams from Group 13, an elite Ukrainian naval strike group, used MAGURA kamikaze sea drones to run down, ram, and sink two Russian KC-701 Tunets-class patrol cutters operating near the Kerch Strait. The Russian warships’ mission had been, in part, to prevent or block Ukrainian USV attacks in the area and against targets further north...
...Ukraine has sunk roughly a third of BSF warships...
...The Russian navy for the most part abandoned Sevastopol in October (2023) – for the first time since 1941.”
The Ukraine Peace Summit this weekend would be hard pressed to find a more secure location.
Kyiv Post reports:
“Switzerland is undertaking a major security operation around this weekend’s summit on Ukraine...
With dozens of heads of state and government flying in for the gathering at the swanky Burgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne, up to 4,000 troops are being deployed and a ring of steel has been put in place.
Around 6.5 kilometres of fencing and eight kilometres of barbed wire is going up, while the valley behind the exclusive hotel complex has been turned into a temporary military heliport...
...High on a mountain ridge, surrounded by water on three sides, the Burgenstock is relatively straightforward to seal off...
...The military will protect infrastructure, provide air transport and reconnaissance, conduct surveillance and interventions on the lake, and offer logistics and command support.
Soldiers have for days been taking position on the winding turns on the road up to the Burgenstock.
Overlooked by cattle with their cowbells clanging, the heliport was built with metal trackway on a squelching field.
Big enough to accommodate five helicopters, it is surrounded by a double layer of steel fencing and barbed wire.
“The army has the ability to set up a temporary take-off and landing zone anywhere in the country,” said Major General Daniel Keller, commander of the Swiss army’s Territorial Division 2, which encompasses Nidwalden.
“The foreign ministry decides which people fly from here and to here. The army provides the infrastructure,” he told reporters this week.
He said the armed forces were accustomed to maintaining air sovereignty.
“Federal law clearly alludes to the possibility of shooting down an aircraft,” he said, while remaining tight-lipped on potential threats such as drones...
The Swiss intelligence services will also work to identify and prevent threats.
Mindful of potential nuclear, biological and chemical threats, specialists will intensify the monitoring of radioactive emission levels in the area, authorities said.”