Vladimir Putin humiliated as Ukraine 'destroys one-third of Russian Black Sea fleet'

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has lost one-third of its assets in the Black Sea since the start of the war, Ukraine has claimed.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have struggled to exert control over the key strategic waterway ever since he sent troops across the border on February 24, 2022, with flagship Moskva famously sunk within two months.

Now Ukrainian naval spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk has lifted the lid on the devastation which he says his nation has wrought on the Russian fleet over the course of the last two years.

Speaking to broadcaster RBC, he explained: “During the first year of the great war, the enemy was pushed back to the south beyond the Dnieper. And all his plans for domination in the Black Sea also began to fade.”

Ukraine had managed, “despite the obstacles of Moscow”, to ensure an ongoing “grain corridor” from the ports of Odesa, Mr Pletenchuk said.

He continued: “Defence forces regularly destroy its so-called Black Sea fleet and missile carriers.

“The ability of the occupiers to land an amphibious assault has also greatly decreased. A third is disabled for sure - destroyed and damaged.”

Since the start of the invasion, Ukrainian Naval Forces together with other military assets had liberated more than 25 thousand square kilometres, Mr Pletenchuk claimed.

He said: “At first it was the northern part of the Black Sea, then the western, then the southwestern, now the central part - they are actually free from the presence of Russian ships.”

He added: “In principle, we can say that they are not present in the Black Sea, but there are two nuances. The first is that they chose the format of such a presence as submarines.

“That is, there is no surface fleet, but there are submarines. In total, there are currently four units in the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in the Azov-Black Sea region.

“Three of them are carriers of cruise missiles. However, one of them does not go to sea - perhaps it has some technical malfunctions.”

Missile carriers were priority target, because they were “actually the only ships that can still somehow influence us”, Mr

Pletenchuk said, emphasising that “the rest do not pose such a threat to us now”.

Asked how any such missile carriers Ukrainian forces had managed to destroy, he added: “Two missile defence systems and a submarine: Askold, Zyklon and Rostov-on-Don”.

“Eight remain, among them three submarines, three MRK Buyan-M and two frigates Essen and Makarov.”

KCHF, a Russian information website which provides details about the fleet, currently lists a total of 47 warships.

By comparison, publicly available figures suggest the figure stood at 74 prior to the start of the war.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) claims to have “disabled” 24 Russian ships and one submarine.

As of June 1, 2024, it put the total Russian combat losses in Ukraine at 508,780 troops.