Russian Navy - News and Analysis

On July 11th, two Ropucha class landing vessels were used in a civilian role ferrying civilian traffic across the Kerch Strait. This use of amphibious landing vessels breaks a pattern, namely the use of these vessels to transport heavy military equipment from Novorossiysk towards Sevastopol in support of Russian military logistics for the troops fighting in southern Ukraine. It also raises questions with regards to the Kerch Bridge. If civilian traffic needs to be diverted and transported across the Kerch Strait by amphibious landing vessels, could this indicate that the bridge is facing severe limitations in the amount of traffic it can support? Background Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Navy significantly increased the amphibious lift capacity of the Black Sea Fleet. This increase was done by transferring three Ropucha class landing vessels of both the Northern Fleet as the Baltic Fleet. These six vessels entered the Black Sea o n February 8th, 2022 and have r...

March 17, 2022 At least six Russian warships were observed near Odessa. The warships maintained their distance and operated on the horizon. March 16, 2022 Several vessels entered the port of Sevastopol including the patrol vessel Vasily Bykov. The Bykov was rumored to be struck and sunk by a Ukrainian grad MLRS barrage near Odessa on March 07 dough this was never officially confirmed.  The visual confirmation of the vessel entering the port of Sevastopol undamaged indicates that if an MLRS attack took place, it did not struck the Bykov. Ropucha class landing vessel Kondopoga of the northern fleet allegedly also entered the port of Sevastopol. March 15, 2022 Several Russian warships and landing ships were spotted on commercial satellite imagery during the morning hours. The vessels were heading in the direction of Odessa.  The vessel leading the formation of landing ships appears to be minesweeper with her sweeping array deployed. During the evening, around 90 missiles were rep...

Summary In the second half of March, an unusual deployment of Ropucha class landing ship-tank (LST) was observed in the North Sea and Mediterranean. Two separate groups, one of the Northern and Baltic Fleet each, were observed heading into the Mediterranean for an unknown deployment.  The first group to be observed consisted of all three operational active Ropucha's belonging to the Baltic Fleet, escorted by the Steregushchy class corvette RFS Boiky. All four vessels passed the English Channel on March 20, suggesting a normal training cruise up the Atlantic Ocean. However, on March 22 a second group passed through the North Sea and these vessels were identified as the Ropucha class LSTs RFS Aleksandr Otrakovskiy and the RFS Kondopoga under the escort of rescue tug SB-406. This group comprised half of all Ropucha class LSTs in service in the Northern Fleet. Only four of the five Ropucha's were heading to the Mediterranean, with the RFS Minks being spotted heading back into the B...

On April 20 and 21, Naval Infantry units of the Baltic Fleet conducted a large scale amphibious exercise in the Kaliningrad Oblast as part of a scheduled two-day exercise. The exercise involved embarkation, transit and landing against a defended coast. The exercise started on April 20 at the port of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad Oblast where 20 BTR-82A Infantry Fighting Vehicles were loaded on board of several amphibious warships. The amphibious warships were identified as the Ropucha class LSTs RFS Kaliningrad and RFS Korolev, supported by the Zubr class hovercraft RFS Eugene Koreshov. At least two Dyugon class landing craft were also seen taking part in the exercise. BTR-82 being loaded on board of the Ropucha class LSTs The fast loading of the Ropucha class LSTs was made possible due to the fact that these vessels were moored in the Mediterranean way, meaning stern towards the land and the bow pointed to the open sea. Not only allows this way of mooring an easy and fast de...

Exercise Ocean Shield 2019 (Okeanskiy Shchit 2019) was a large scale naval exercise conducted by the Baltic Fleet between August 1 and 9, 2019. The exercise involved the participation of over 49 warships from two seperate fleets, Northern and Baltic, with 20 support ships. Over 58 aircraft from both the army and naval aviation were involved as well. Russian figures state that a total of 10,634 military personnel were involved in the exercise. The exercise involved a wide variety of smaller exercises which will be discussed in further detail below in the form of daily reports followed by a general summary. The first focus of the exercise was to check the combat readiness of the Russian naval forces in the Baltic Sea and the further development of skills in operating the fleet and executing different tasks during this exercise. Several Russian sources state that lessons learned from naval deployments at the Syrian coast were also taken into account during the exercise. A lot of info...