While the Russian invasion and the Ukrainian counteroffensive look stuck onshore, things are on the move at sea, with Ukraine scoring important victories, even though it has almost no military fleet to speak of.
What makes war in the twenty-first century remarkable, at least at first sight, is the use of drones – unmanned aerial or sea vehicles – capable of inflicting major harm, at little expense, to the behemoths of the 20th century: military ports, ships, airports and their fleets of military aircraft.
Ukraine is increasingly targeting Crimea, its Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. To avoid escalation, the US is putting pressure on Kyiv not to attack Russia proper – but Crimea is not Russian, so the Ukrainian army has no qualms about carrying out its attacks there.
The main target appears to be the port of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea and Russia’s major base for its Black Sea fleet.
Sevastopol was a Russian navy base even after Ukraine became independent, and its lease was negotiated until 2042, with the option of further extensions. But Russia ‘made it simple’ in 2014 by annexing Crimea.
The most recent Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol is described as the biggest since the Russian invasion started in February 2022. A large landing vessel and submarine were hit in the strike, carried out by missiles and sea drones – unmanned speedboats.
In parallel, the Kerch bridge linking Russia proper and Crimea, inaugurated by Vladimir Putin in 2018, has been under constant Ukrainian attacks after it suffered major damage on 8 October 2022 when a truck stuffed with explosives exploded, bringing down a section and rendering two motorway lanes unusable.
Russia later repaired the damage.
Since Putin unleashed his war of aggression, perhaps the biggest military success of Ukraine has been the sinking on 14 April 2022 of the Moskva warship, the pride of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
It is important to note that although Ukraine does not have a navy, Russia could still not capture the city of Odesa. Ukraine thus kept its largest port and foiled the Kremlin’s initial plan to strip Kyiv of access to the Black Sea. The use of sea drones by Ukraine largely kept Russia at bay.
As the war enters a phase when the battlefields in the east and the south are likely to remain frozen until spring or early summer 2024, because of the weather conditions, warfare at sea will take centre stage. And this is where Ukraine seems to have the stronger cards.
Russia’s strategy has been a war of attrition, which will deplete Ukraine, a much smaller country, of its resources, first and foremost of military personnel. In theory, after Ukraine recognises its difficulty in continuing to resist, Moscow hopes to achieve peace under its terms.
Ukraine’s strategy is to carry on – with the West’s help – and hope for a collapse in Russia of the kind already seen in history such as in 1917, when Imperial Russia collapsed, or in 1991, when it was the turn of the Soviet Union to fall to pieces.
Which one would come first is impossible to predict.
However, if Ukraine were to stage repeated military successes against Russia in the Black Sea, it would be perceived as Russia losing the Black Sea battle and would have the potential to seriously undermine Russia’s morale, which could be conducive to a meltdown in the Kremlin.
The risk remains that when Russia suffers iconic defeats in this David-vs-Goliath battle, it strikes the civilian population with ballistic missiles and could be tempted to do horrific things to discourage the West from continuing its support to Ukraine.
For the time being, as we already wrote, the Black Sea is the place to watch.
The Roundup
As the EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) is approaching its second birthday, director-general Pierre Delsaux told Euractiv in an interview that they are taking transparency of their work seriously despite persisting worries.
EU lawmakers backed the European Parliament’s position on reforming the bloc’s electricity market in a plenary vote on Thursday (14 September), despite objections from more than 180 of them that weaken the parliament’s position vis-à-vis member states.
A prosecutor for Greece’s top criminal court has ordered a probe into the causes and handling of floods triggered by a storm that killed at least 15 people, swamped houses and destroyed infrastructure in Greece last week, semi-state Athens News Agency said on Wednesday.
Scientists are urging national and EU authorities to take swift action against the rapid spread of the fire ant, a highly invasive species with the potential to cause major health and environmental damage.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave no reassurances on finalising the missing pieces of the EU’s flagship sustainable food policy in her annual State of the Union address on Wednesday, instead proposing a change of course in the current agri-food debate.
Beijing on Thursday blasted the launch of a probe by the European Commission into China’s electric vehicle (EV) subsidies as protectionist and warned it would damage economic and trade relations, as shares in Chinese EV makers slipped.
The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted its position on a revised law to improve air quality in the EU, calling for stricter limits on several pollutants, but delaying compliance with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines until 2035.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday he was grateful to Bulgaria for not extending restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports from 15 Septеmber.
Don’t miss this week’s Economy Brief: Sure, more competitiveness! But how?; and the EU Politics Decoded: The von der Leyen supremacy.
Look out for…
- Informal meeting of economic and financial affairs ministers in Spain, Friday-Saturday.
- Eurogroup meeting.
- Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn delivers keynote speech at Skopje Economic and Finance Forum 2023 on Friday.
Views are the author’s
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
