Photo via Military Informant
Ukraine's Combined on Russian BSF
New Western satellite imagery provides confirmation that the Ukrainian jet drone and missile attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) on the night of August 12 likely caused serious damage to top-of-the-line warships — Project 11356R frigates Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov — in Novorossiysk Bay.
The large-scale combined attack was carried out using Neptune anti-ship missiles, Palianytsia jet-powered strike drones, and unmanned surface vessels.
Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov are both key Kalibr cruise-missile carriers, equipped with eight vertical launch cells each. The imagery shows damage to the UKSK 3S14 area housing the Kalibr cruise missiles.
Admiral Essen shows signs of fire resulting from a drone strike on the UKSK cells. On Admiral Makarov, a breach in the bow section of the upper deck, to the left of the location of the Kalibr cruise missiles, is evident.
Military Informant states that "In addition, there are suspicions that the satellite communication station 'Centaur-NM1' and the detection radar 'Pozitiv-M1.2', located on the superstructure closer to the stern, were damaged."
This marked the third time in 2026 that both frigates had been damaged. Ironically, Russia relocated its Black Sea Fleet warships from Sevastopol to a "safe" harbor at Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai. Also, Admiral Makarov, which became the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet after the loss of the guided-missile cruiser Moskva in a Neptune anti-ship missile attack, has now sustained damage.
Ukrainian sources have additionally claimed damage to a Project 21631 Buyan-M small missile ship and the Project 22160 patrol ship Vasily Bykov, air-defence assets (including a 30N6E radar from an S-300 system), port infrastructure, and oil facilities at the Sheskharis terminal.
Though satellite imagery confirms damage to the Black Sea Fleet warships, it does not reveal the extent of the damage. It could well be largely superficial. In the worst-case scenario, the ships will require lengthy dockyard repairs.
Perplexing BSF Posture
It's difficult to see merit in the current posture of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. While it makes sense to relocate fleet warships at a greater distance from Ukrainian drone and missile launch pads, it is difficult to understand why the warships should passively remain in harbor, waiting to be struck.
It's possible that Ukraine is using containers on commercial shipping to launch missile and drone attacks, reducing time of flight and providing greater flexibility with attack vectors. If that is true, keeping warships docked makes even less sense because bunching targets facilitates combined attacks designed to overwhelm defences.
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