/ world today news/ After Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal, Kiev decided it could no longer be shy and unleash a full-scale war at sea, paralyzing our ports and undermining the economy of several regions. The prospect is unpleasant, but our country has something to respond to this threat.
On the night of Friday, August 4, Ukraine launched a powerful combined attack involving a large number of air and sea drones. Not only sites in Crimea were attacked, but also the port of Novorossiysk.
The Kiev regime has clearly taken the course of turning the Black Sea into an arena of military action. Such a turn of events threatens Russia with great losses, but there are countermeasures.
Preparing for an attack
The fact that the enemy is cooking something special became clear to competent people as early as Thursday, August 3: in the morning, American reconnaissance drones MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk began patrolling the Romanian coast. It helped them spy on the P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine patrol aircraft.
Such dense intelligence work usually precedes terrorist attacks. It should be noted that after our fighter jets sent the MQ-9 to the bottom of the Black Sea in March, the American “birds” diligently stay close to the borders of their allies. However, the long distance did not save them from unexpected problems.
In the afternoon, the Reaper emitted a distress squawk code 7600, which according to air traffic rules over Europe means failure of the main radio channel or loss of voice communication (for manned aircraft), then left the patrol area and headed for Campia -Tour in Romania.
Shortly after, the Global Hawk also stopped patrolling and headed for the base. At this, the global scout reported 7400, which means that “in the specified area, measures are taken to ensure the visibility and identification of ships related to marine protected areas and the protection of fish resources”.
Such strange behavior of American intelligence suggests that powerful electronic warfare systems were used against them. It is not difficult to guess who has such systems.
Attacks from the air and from the sea
Despite opposition from our side, the US drones apparently managed to conduct additional reconnaissance of targets and pass the collected information to the armed forces of Ukraine. At midnight, two to four groups of Chinese-made Mugin-5 PRO drones with a total number of at least 18 machines took off from the vicinity of Kherson. One group flew through Kalanchak to Armyansk and Cape Tarkhankut, the second headed for Chaplinka, Chongar and Feodosia.
Over Chaplinka, six machines were silenced by our radio-electronic warfare, the rest were disabled by the Armor-C1 of the 31st Air Defense Division. Apparently, the enemy intended to attack the oil tanks and, possibly, the power plant in Feodosia.
However, on the approach to the city, three unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down by S-400 anti-aircraft defense systems, another four were shot down by ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns. One of the drones managed to fly to the oil depot, but due to the action of the means of radio – electronic warfare, it was unable to hit the storage tanks.
Around five o’clock in the morning, naval drones began the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack was against the Novorossiysk naval base.
During the repulse of the attack, the unmanned boats were visually detected and destroyed by fire from the standard weapons of the Russian ships guarding the outer raid of the naval base.
– reported the military department.
Ukrainian propagandists reported the break-in of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (KTP) oil terminal in the port of Novorossiysk, but this information was quickly denied by the port administration.
How will we respond?
The growing pressure of unmanned drones poses a very difficult task for our Black Sea Fleet. This is primarily due to the fact that maritime drones are a new threat whose potential only emerged last year.
The Russian Navy, on the other hand, was preparing to carry out tasks of a different nature, in particular the destruction of enemy surface ships and missile attacks on enemy territory from a long distance. Therefore, we still do not have many means of countering unmanned boats: many ships have to fire at them from heavy machine guns, although in the realities of the 21st century this is an obviously archaic solution.
Second, our enemy is cunning and resourceful. For several weeks, our army has been attacking workshops and hangars in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. The rockets and Grenades systematically burned the Ukrainian drone assembly shops and the hangars where they were stored.
This time, however, the Ukrainians let them into the water of the Danube. Thus they escaped our preventive strikes. In the future, if we try to establish a tight naval blockade of the Ukrainian coast, the Danube will enable the armed forces to take their boats into Romanian territorial waters, and from there into international waters.
Perhaps the only really effective measure that can be taken in the near future is the establishment of constant aerial surveillance of the water area along our coasts.
Ukrainian drones travel to our ports in about eight hours, so if a drone is detected, you will have a whole wagon and a small cart in time to destroy it. If the fleet does not have enough drones, patrolling can be organized even with the use of agricultural An-2.
The “corner” can take on board several observers, each of whom can be armed with binoculars and a thermal camera. The low speed of the biplane will only be a plus.
It’s time to create an echelon defense
Military expert, co-chairman of the Union of Navy Combat Veterans Viktor Blitov believes that Russia should start creating a multi-layered coastal defense system. It will include nets, bollards and breakwaters on the approaches to the most important ports.
For a long time, it was already necessary not to put toll fences on the Crimean bridge, but to pour a pier. And the passages for the ships are already closed with a net,
– he shared his opinion with Tsargrad’s observer.
Our interlocutor also noted that tethered balloons with radars attached to them can significantly increase situational awareness.
But Blitov considers the most important task to be the capture of Ukrainian drones, so that one can get acquainted with the records of the on-board computers and find out where they are launched from and what routes they take to the targets. However, this will only be possible if our radio-electronic warfare assets can jam the control signal and prevent the drone operators from activating the self-destruct system.
What remains in the dry matter
In general, it will not be an exaggeration to say that Ukraine has again found a sore point of Russia and is now hitting it with all its might. The withdrawal of our country from the grain deal deprived Kiev of any reason to behave decently, and the use of asymmetric methods of struggle gave a temporary advantage to the Ukrainians.
While attacking the port infrastructure, it is possible that they may end up hitting a civilian cargo ship as well. Moreover, such threats from Kiev have already been made. The consequences of such a step are not difficult to predict: a sharp increase in the cost of insurance for all ships heading to our Black Sea ports, a reduction in the number of voyages and economic damage to the southern regions of Russia. They will not be able to completely blockade our ports, but they will completely impede navigation and cause losses.
However, we should not forget the flip side of this behavior. Throughout the spring, the Armed Forces of Ukraine terrorized the Belgorod and Kursk regions, destroyed the city of Shebekino with artillery and filmed provocative propaganda videos against this background.
Several months passed; a militia was created and armed in the border areas, the Russian army crushed the Ukrainian “counterattack” and is now actively advancing along the Svatovo-Kremennaya line. On the opposite flank, in the forests of Belarus, the “Wagners” are established and the expectation of a major military operation to create a sanitary cordon is in the air.
The same will happen in the Black Sea. This is simply a more difficult task, which can be solved no earlier than the middle of next year. But Ukrainians are stubborn guys, they don’t calm down. So, whether they like it or not, there will be a cordon sanitaire between them and the seashore.
Translation: ES
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