Russia’s use of missile carriers in Black Sea proves ineffective; one submarine with Kalibr missiles present

This was reported on air by Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Navy, according to a Ukrinform correspondent.

“There is a submarine in the Black Sea, it is a missile carrier... No other Russian ships are observed in the area. We consider the situation dangerous and are monitoring developments,” Pletenchuk said.

According to him, Russia has five ships and three submarines in the Black Sea capable of carrying cruise missiles. During strikes, they often use the tactic of deploying two ships into the sea, firing, and then returning to the bay.

In July, Russia launched Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea once, in August twice, and once in September, the Navy spokesperson reported.

“This may indicate that they themselves understand the low effectiveness of using these weapons systems, or that they face certain difficulties in employing them. Knowing the Russians, I tend to the second option, because they always use their potential to the maximum. And in June, after Ukraine’s special operation called ‘Spider Web,’ they tried to compensate for the loss of their strike capabilities with air carriers. It was in June that they [missile carriers in the Black Sea] were the most active,” Pletenchuk noted.

According to him, the current effectiveness of missile carriers in the Black Sea is low: 14 of the last 16 missiles launched were destroyed. Overall, according to the Navy spokesperson, in Crimea, Russia mainly keeps support ships, which are not combat vessels, as well as patrol boats. The rest of the Black Sea Fleet has been redeployed to the port of Novorossiysk.

As reported by Ukrinform, on September 10, special forces of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine struck a Black Sea Fleet vessel of the MPSV07 multipurpose ship project near Novorossiysk.