Russian planes reportedly have mined the maritime corridor that Ukraine established in the western Black Sea in order to safeguard the export of grain to Europe and Africa. It seems to be the first time in Russia’s 21-month wider war that the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s aircraft have deployed sea mines.
Ukraine’s southern command reported the ominous development on Wednesday. “The enemy … dropped four unidentified means of impact, probably bottom mines, in the Black Sea … in the direction of navigation corridors of civil shipping,” the command stated.
The mines could impede, or even halt, Ukrainian grain shipments along the corridor—with huge implications for Ukraine’s economy, as well as for world hunger. Ukraine is a major supplier of grain to Africa, in particular.
The western Black Sea has been a battleground ever since Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022. Despite scuttling its sole large warship, a gun-armed frigate, the Ukrainian navy has successfully forced Russian ships out of the western Black Sea.
Deploying ground-launched ballistic missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, drones and explosives-laden robotic boats, the Ukrainian fleet has sunk or badly damaged six of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s 30 or so large warships—a cruiser, three amphibious ships, a submarine and a supply ship—plus several patrol boats and landing craft.
The steady degradation of the Russian fleet allowed Ukraine to reopen, in August, its corridor connecting the strategic port of Odesa to the Bosporus Strait in Turkey. In two months, nearly 40 large ships safely have transited the corridor carrying 700,000 tons of grain.
That was before the Russians reportedly mined the corridor. It’s unclear which planes the Black Sea Fleet used to lay the seabottom mines, but it’s worth noting the fleet’s increasing reliance on its handful of surviving Beriev Be-12 flying boats: 60-year-old antiques that would’ve slipped into oblivion if Russia hadn’t attacked Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces apparently detected whatever Russian planes deployed the alleged mines, but weren’t able to intercept them. The Ukrainians have denied the Russians full control of the western Black Sea, but haven’t exerted their own full control. Long-range Russian air-defenses in occupied Crimea still make air patrols over the Black Sea risky for the Ukrainian air force.
The Ukrainian navy recently acquired two ex-British minesweepers, but both vessels and their crews are in British waters, training and awaiting the day when it’s safe to sail into the Black Sea. The two lightly-armed Sandown-class vessels wouldn’t last long in contested waters.
The Ukrainians have other means of clearing sea mines, including divers and small undersea drones that the United Kingdom donated last year. Expect those forces to get to work reopening the grain corridor. But also expect the Russians to drop more mines.
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