Russia’s navy appears to be like to be stretched skinny after getting battered by Ukraine and dropping a key port, Western officers say

• Russia’s navy seems to be stretched skinny from setbacks within the Black Sea and Syria, a Dutch commander stated.

• Ukrainian assaults on the Black Sea Fleet and the lack of a key Syrian port have dealt main blows.

• Now, Russia’s ships and submarines seem like below higher pressure at sea than ever earlier than.

TROMSØ, NORWAY — Russia’s navy appears to be like to be stretched skinny by the Ukrainian assaults within the Black Sea and the lack of a key port in Syria, a prime Dutch commander advised Enterprise Insider.

Throughout an interview aboard the Royal Netherlands Navy frigate HNLMS De Ruyter final week, Commodore Arjen Warnaar stated these current setbacks have drastically affected the Russian Navy from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic area.

“I feel they’re stretched,” stated Warnaar, commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 — one of many navy alliance’s fast response forces — whereas its flagship vessel De Ruyter performed operations within the Norwegian Sea.

Russia’s navy has at all times been below a sure diploma of pressure resulting from limits in shipbuilding, upkeep, and modernization, redeployment challenges, and operational overstretch. Current setbacks, nevertheless, have put additional stress on the fleet.

In the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine lacked a naval power able to assembly the risk. What little it had did not final lengthy. To forestall the Russians from capturing it, the Ukrainians scuttled their one main warship. Its different naval vessels have been broken, destroyed, or captured.

To mission energy within the Black Sea and combat again in opposition to Moscow, Kyiv launched an uneven navy marketing campaign involving domestically produced naval drones and missile strikes.

Ukrainian operations have broken or destroyed dozens of Russian warships and naval vessels and compelled Moscow to relocate a lot of the Black Sea Fleet from its Sevastopol headquarters in occupied Crimea to the port of Novorossiysk on the opposite aspect of the area.

Staggering Russian losses and compelled retreats below relentless Ukrainian strikes have stretched a Russian fleet already hobbled by attrition, ageing ships in want of restore, and a shipbuilding trade too strained to exchange them.

Russia’s naval setbacks worsened in late 2024 after Syrian insurgent forces seized the capital, Damascus, and toppled the Assad regime, bringing a swift finish to the nation’s yearslong civil conflict.

Russia supplied navy help to the Assad regime throughout the brutal battle, and in alternate, it loved a major presence at Syria’s Tartus naval facility on the Mediterranean Sea. Nevertheless, the change in Damascus has jeopardized the way forward for Moscow’s operations on the strategic port.

Warnaar stated the fallout of those two setbacks has been vital for the Russian Navy.

“I feel they’ve at all times been stretched,” Warnaar stated of Russia’s naval forces, however the scenario appears to be like to be getting worse. “As soon as issues begin to occur — and, clearly, Ukraine is an instance — they’re going to be much more stretched.” He famous that NATO has the property for any further stretch required.

” what they’re doing within the Mediterranean, dropping a port there means dropping logistical help — and that stretches the capabilities they’ve, which primarily come from this Northern Fleet,” the commander stated. The Northern Fleet relies in Russia’s Murmansk area, alongside the Barents Sea.

A NATO official echoed Warnaar’s evaluation and stated dropping Tartus means Russia now wants to tug property from different areas to help operations within the Mediterranean, placing higher stress on Moscow’s ships and submarines and help techniques to maintain the deployments.

And Russia’s Black Sea losses have solely added to its power era challenges, stated the NATO official, talking with Enterprise Insider on the situation of anonymity to debate alliance observations regarding Russia’s navy.

These points should not distinctive to the Russian Navy. The official stated many militaries face power era points. However Moscow’s issues are compounded by its efforts to maintain tempo with NATO’s huge, collectively organized maritime presence round the European continent.

These challenges have gotten more and more necessary in the Arctic area, the place local weather change is opening up new delivery lanes, creating navy and financial alternatives for NATO allies — and adversaries.

The rising significance of the Excessive North area was underscored final month when Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 — led by the modern Dutch warship De Ruyter — deployed to the frigid waters off the northern coast of Norway to conduct a spread of operations.

British Cdr. Craig Raeburn, chief of workers of the maritime group, advised Enterprise Insider that NATO was “working on this space as a result of it is one thing we’ve not performed for some time.” He stated one of many many causes the consortium of warships deployed to the Arctic is to control Russian exercise within the area and likewise “see how they react to us being right here.”

Moscow was comparatively unmoved by the deployment. At one level, a lone Russian naval plane operated in shut proximity to the maritime group, however none of its ships got here out to observe the NATO exercise, Warnaar stated. He attributed this to attainable pressure on the Russian Navy following a sequence of main workout routines referred to as July Storm.

Cdr. Arlo Abrahamson, spokesperson for NATO Allied Maritime Command, stated the alliance’s maritime presence throughout the Euro-Atlantic is meant to defend and defend allied pursuits.

“In projecting this maritime presence, with a strong safety community of Allied navies, if an adversary desires to keep up an analogous profile, it may place pressure on their power era capabilities,” Abrahamson stated in emailed remarks to Enterprise Insider. Russia is not in a position to match that with out stress on the fleet.

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