Black Sea Fleet lost 25% of ships, Sergei Kotov corvette chased for 5 months - Forbes

The Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation loses ships once a month. On March 5, the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that naval drones were used to attack the Sergei Kotov warship in the Black Sea.

It is reported by Forbes.

The 1,700-ton Project 22160 corvette sank off the coast of Feodosia in the south-east of Crimea. Since February 2022, the AFU have destroyed or sunk four russian landing ships, a cruiser, a submarine, a supply ship, several patrol boats and small landing craft, and now two missile corvettes.

Losses from Ukrainian cruise missiles and drone boats account for almost a quarter of the entire Black Sea Fleet.

The Project 22160 is unique to the Black Sea Fleet. The russian fleet is building six such vessels with a capacity of 80 people. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have been trying to sink four of them in service with the russian fleet for several months.

The crew of the Sergei Kotov corvette managed to fight off the Magura V5 marine drone stuffed with explosives back in September. A month later, one of the drones attacked the similar ship Pavel Derzhavin, and five months later the Ukrainian drones returned for Sergei Kotov.

The russian shipbuilding sector depended on the supply of marine engines from Ukraine. Today, russian ships still manage to build large submarines, but there are difficulties with surface ships heavier than a few thousand tons. In addition, now the only major waterway to the Black Sea is closed to warships.

Recently, the Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation has written off about one warship per month, so most of the ships were withdrawn from the most vulnerable Crimean ports, as well as from Novorossiysk.

At the same time, several ships still enter the western Black Sea - launching cruise missiles or delivering supplies to the russian garrison in the south of Ukraine.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on the night of Tuesday, March 5, a russian patrol ship of Project 22160 Sergei Kotov was hit in Crimea. It was attacked by Magura V5 naval drones and sustained three damages at once.

The Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said that Sergei Kotov took part in the attack on the Zmiinyi Island along with the Moskva cruiser.

The Sergei Kotov ship was the newest ship of Project 22160, which consisted of four similar vessels. Now only one of them remains unscathed.