...
Obviously, this naval task force would be designed to offset Russia’s military footprint in the Black Sea region, which has dramatically increased following the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing fortification of the peninsula[2]. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been slated for modernization since late 2000s, with the induction of new surface and submarine platforms, some of which being already dispatched (2 diesel SSK equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, while 4 additional units should be ...
... maritime interface retained by Russia in the Black Sea do not host any ports with capacities to replace those of Nikolayev or Kherson (as naval shipyards) on the one hand, and those of Sevastopol (as the main maintenance port and the headquarter of the Black Sea Fleet) on the other hand. Novorossiysk being an exception, none of Black Sea Russian ports can host several vessels of high tonnage: from the 26 ports and naval bases the USSR had in the Black Sea in 1991, 19 were left in Ukraine, 4 remained ...
... Severodvinsk and employed nearly 24 000 people[8]. The ports Russia kept after 1991 in the Sea of Azov and in the Black Sea were largely second and third importance ports with limited infrastructures and poor production capacities. Consequently, since 1991, Black Sea Fleet vessels’ maintenance has been performed by Baltic shipyards (either in Kaliningrad or in Saint Petersburg), and by Bulgarian shipyard (Varna), and, occasionally, by the Ship Repair Plant n° 13 in Sevastopol. This precarious maritime ...
Part Two:
What are the consequences for the buildup of the Black Sea Fleet?
Having examined the plans for the economic development of Crimea and the construction of infrastructures in the peninsula in our previous paper, we now raise issues related to the impact of Russia’s seizure of Crimea for the modernization ...
The disputes over Crimea and the Fleet’s base are going to continue
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, fraught with a serious destabilisation of the country, concerns Russia’s interests too, some of the most important being the fate of the Black Sea Fleet, its status in Crimea and its historic main base in Sevastopol.
The struggle for the future of the Black Sea Fleet started on 5 April 1992, when Ukraine’s President Leonid Kravchuk signed a Decree “On Urgent Measures for Building ...
