Russia's Navy needs to be protected from long-range missile attacks as soon as possible, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting discussing shipbuilding on Wednesday, June 26.
"It is necessary to protect our fleet from possible attacks already on the far outskirts of naval bases and areas of operation of our ships," he said.
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Last month, Ukraine's Armed Forces destroyed a Russian Black Sea Fleet small missile ship, the Cyclone, during an attack on the occupied port of Sevastopol. According to Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk, the 22800 Karakut class vessel was at that time the last Kalibr equipped Russian missile carrier on the Crimean Peninsula, as the rest had already been transferred to Novorossiysk due to the Ukrainian attacks.
As of today, according to the Ukrainian Navy's Facebook page: "There are 2 enemy ships in the Black Sea, 1 of them is a carrier of Kalibr cruise missiles.There are 8 enemy ships in the Sea of Azov, 2 of which are carriers of Kalibr cruise missiles with a total salvo of up to 16 missiles."
Putin noted that to increase the combat stability of the Black Sea fleet, "special attention should be paid to the speedy introduction of remote threat detection systems, including those from unmanned vehicles."
He also said that the fleet is being replenished with new ships, equipped with modern weapons, and that domestic shipbuilders will hand over more than 40 vessels to the Defense Ministry this year.
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According to the open-source intelligence (OSINT) site Molfar, Ukraine has sunk or damaged nearly 60 ships of the Russian Navy.
In March Kyrylo Budanov,the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (HUR), said that the attacks on Russian ships and other targets in the Black Sea were in preparation for a "serious operation in Crimea."
MAGURA-V5 maritime drones developed by the HUR helped sink several Russian ships. This has forced the Russians to move most of the Russian fleet from its main Black Sea harbor in occupied Crimea back to ports on the Russian mainland, Budanov told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“They are already trapped near the Novorossiysk port,” Budanov said. “We just need to make sure that all the remains of the fleet are pushed back to the territory of the Russian Federation. There have been no combat ships left in the Black Sea for a long time”
Earlier, he shared his unusual hobby, which is also related to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
"If we are talking about naval drones, I have model ships. Every time a new one comes out, I get a new one [ship’s model] - I hope to have a full shelf someday. This will mean that the Black Sea Fleet is over," Budanov added.
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