New imagery appears to show vessels with Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have left the country’s Novorossiysk base, after Moscow relocated its ships further east in the Black Sea to shield its fleet from persistent Ukrainian attacks. The imagery, dated June 5, indicates a possible “exodus” of Black Sea Fleet vessels from the base in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, an open-source intelligence account posted to social media.
Newsweek could not independently verify the imagery, and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email. Ukraine’s navy said early on Thursday that four Russian ships were in the Black Sea, including a Kalibr-cruise missile carrier, as of 7 a.m. local time.
Russia had used the occupied Crimean city of Sevastopol as its primary Black Sea base, but consistent Ukrainian missile and drone strikes—and substantial Russian naval losses—forced Moscow to relocate many of its assets further east in the Black Sea, including to its Novorossiysk base.
Western intelligence has evaluated that Russia has restricted its activity in the northwestern Black Sea, where Ukraine can more easily threaten its fleet. Kyiv’s targeting of Sevastopol has made Novorossiysk a “crucial” port for harboring the Black Sea Fleet’s “most valuable assets,” the British Defense Ministry said earlier this year.
“Essentially, we have confined the Russian fleet to the Novorossiysk Bay,” Vasyl Maliuk, the head of Ukraine’s SBU security service, said in late May. Reports have also suggested the Kremlin is planning a new military base at the port of Ochamchire in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. This would put Russian assets even further from Ukraine’s coastline.
Although Ukraine can more easily target the Crimean base of Sevastopol, Kyiv has also looked to threaten the fleet in Novorossiysk. In mid-May, Ukraine launched drone attacks on military facilities in Novorossiysk and an oil refinery along the Black Sea coastline.
In late March, the British Defense Ministry said Moscow had started using four barges to guard the entrance to Novorossiysk, designed to strengthen the port’s defenses against Ukrainian naval drones. Satellite imagery published by London earlier this year indicated that Russia had painted decoy silhouettes of at least one Kilo-class submarine at Novorossiysk, likely designed to confuse Ukrainian drone operators.
Russia’s former defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, previously announced that Moscow would beef up the protection around its Black Sea fleet, adding large-caliber machine guns to shoot at incoming drones before they can hit Russian vessels.
