Russia is changing the drones it attacks with, and hiding the ships it can no longer use. Russian forces are using more jet-powered drones in their air attacks, effectively betting on them, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said, according to UkrInform.
The shift is toward faster, harder-to-stop drones. Russia is reducing the number of ordinary drones and increasing the jet-powered ones, betting on them first and foremost.
Jet-powered Shaheds fly faster than propeller models, giving air defenses less time to react, and Russia has used them in recent strikes, including the 1 August attack that killed a warehouse worker at the retailer Rozetka. Ballistic missiles, Pletenchuk added, remain the main challenge.
The Black Sea Fleet no longer goes to sea
Russia also still claims control of waters it cannot use. The Russians believe they exercise operational control over the Black Sea, but if you look at it purely in terms of sea sorties, they are absent, Pletenchuk said.
"The Azov Sea is out of the question now, and the Black Sea, effectively, the same," he stressed.
Russian aviation remains present and is a problem because it allows Russia to at least map the situation and makes the sea dangerous, but the fleet itself has been driven from the water.
Russia is afraid to repair its own ships
The most striking detail is what has happened to ship maintenance. Russia has repair facilities in occupied Crimea, but does not dare enter and repair ships there, because it has already learned how such repairs end.
They end with the Navy and the Armed Forces adding the "final touches," he said, so Russia periodically tows ships between bays to keep them from being finished off. Novorossiysk has some repair capacity, but docking there is very risky because a ship under repair becomes a stationary target. In practice, no one does it there either. As for small craft like Raptor and Grachonok boats, they are caught during rotations to the occupied spits and destroyed when they come into view, he added, sometimes turning back mid-route, the only patrol vessels Russia still uses.
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