Russians relocating part of Black Sea Fleet from occupied Crimea to Novorossiysk - defense intel

After a series of Ukraine’s successful strikes that destroyed and sunk Russian warships in the Black Sea, the Russian Navy is redeploying part of their Black Sea Fleet from temporarily occupied Crimea to mainland’s Novorossiysk.

That’s according to Andrii Yusov, the spokesman for Ukraine’s defense intelligence, who spoke on the air of the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"The redeployment to Novorossiysk continues, although they cannot completely leave temporarily occupied Crimea without naval forces as such. Otherwise, that would mean fleeing. But, indeed, the headquarters infrastructure and warships are being actively relocated to Novorossiysk," he said.

Yusov noted that no Black Sea Fleet vessels have left their bases since several of them were hit by Ukraine’s naval drones a few weeks ago.

The intelligence spokesman said the Russians are trying to change their defense tactics, exploring new tools to this end. However, Ukraine intends to pursue an active campaign of depleting Russia’s naval fleet in and around Crimea.

"It will not necessarily be a repetition of previous operations. These will be new combined steps in the air, at sea, and on land," Yusov said.

It should be recalled that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Black Sea Fleet has lost more than 20 vessels, including a submarine, a number of large landing ships, and their flagship cruiser, Moskva.