chris talpas

Re: possible insurgency
1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
 
Re: how am I doing?
My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.

Ok, let’s use your facts then.  At 15% of the local population actively supporting annexation that is around 330,000 who appears to be solidly in the pro-Russian camp…in 2014.  It is a major leap of logic to assume that the dynamics of 2014 apply ten years later but after ten years of Russian rule it is safe bet that the area was “Russified” pretty intensely.
And then there is the very awkward question of “how much civil resistance did the Russian’s see when they took over the entire region?”  This is also a major indicator you are skipping over.
Here is the point most people miss on insurgencies, and you are doing it here as well - they are very often if not always a very small minority of the population.  If all 2.2 million Crimeans decide “nope” and take up active or violent resistance then Ukraine will not take back Crimea.  However, as you note and here I do agree, this is very unlikely.  But they don’t have to. The majority of civilians need only stay neutral or play both sides - here the nearly 68 percent who identify as Russia come into play.  A fraction of a fraction of the 15% who actively were onside need only take up arms and be supported by an outside power for this to constitute a major insurgency.  Say only 33,000 Crimeans get really riled up, hidden amongst a neutral population that really have no love or loyalty to either side, you have the conditions right there for a decades long problem.  It will be very much in Russia’s interest to make that happen, which is another major factor.
”Crap happens plan for the worst”.  Really?  Ok, once again let’s review the key factors that provide the fuel for insurgents, all that “happening crap” that we teach a joint war colleges:
- A cause.  Very often tied to identity, ethnicity or religion (often all three) and a belief in an idea of a political framework other than the one they are living under.  In simpler terms a certainty.  Is there a population in either of the occupied regions who are likely to have “a cause”?  Well 2014-2023 says “likely”. https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer
- Failure in mechanism of change/representation.  Re-integration of these regions is going to be dicey in the extreme as it will mean re-enfranchisement of potentially hostile citizenry into a democratic process.  This was a major flash point in the Donbas pre-2014, perceived lack of representation and failures in representative governance.https://www.ponarseurasia.org/wp-content/uploads/attachments/Pepm351_Kudelia_Sept2014.pdf.  This situation boxes some people in to the point that violent resistance is the only agent of change.  So is there likely to be a portion of the Crimean population that is at risk of feeling dis-enfranchised after liberation?  Are they going to feel boxed in?
- Weak governance.  This is an area you have already admitted is a risk and frankly it will become a key battleground post-conflict.  If governance slips, corruption and old habits come into play then popular sentiment can swing pretty fast. Insurgencies thrive on poor governance and inequities, which they link immediately to their cause as the solutions for. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-choice-corruption-or-growth/
- Popular support.  This does not need to be active support, it can simply be passive.  Both you and our Ukrainian posters point to largely “neutral populace in these regions”, that is more than enough to set conditions for effective insurgencies.  They will play that neutrality and use money and other incentives to create transactional networks that allow them freedom of movement.  The other viable tactic is effectively staging over reaction from the “liberators” in order to push neutrality in their direction.  As has already been covered, this is a very likely condition in these regions.
- Repression.  Perceived or manufactured narratives, conditions of repression of populations are rich soil for insurgency.  You, and other posters have already leaned into mass deportations, which is going to look and feel pretty repressive in the regions.  This sort of stuff can split families and friends along “citizenship and true loyalty” lines.  As has also been noted Ukrainian security services are in high gear and will be very likely pushing hard to root out cells before they can metastasize.  Is there a likely perception of repression under these conditions?  Is there a vulnerable narrative that can be exploited?
- External support with interests.  Normally passive support by a neighbouring nation, safe havens and blind eyes (eg Taliban in Pakistan) is bad enough.  Active support at the levels Russia is likely to provide is something else.  This is a North Vietnam/Mujahideen situation.  Is this likely?  We already saw Russia do this for years in these regions.  Will Russia have an interest in making life a living hell for Ukraine in Crimea and Donbas?  Will they have means and opportunity?  Short of a complete collapse of Russia (and then we have a whole new set of problems), I suspect the answer is a hard “yes”.
That is not great risk calculus nor is it “hype”.  And in the “crap happens” camp of "no insurgency": “Solvyanks did not blow up, all the bad people will leave, those left are too lazy to do anything about it anyway and LNR/DPR and Russians suck.”
Ok, well let’s put this one down on record then because we are not likely to agree.  I believe that there is a high probability of civilian violent opposition to Ukrainian liberation in Crimea, and even though it will be a very small minority it will cause strategic effects. It will likely happen in the 1-5 years after liberation, faster if Ukraine gets too heavy handed.  To counter this will take significant effort not only by Ukraine but by it allies to ensure those conditions above are stamped out. This will come at significant cost and risk, and cannot be the piecemeal support we have seen from the West so far.  It will also take an epic reconciliation, reconstruction and enfranchisement effort on the part of the Ukrainian people as well as major reforms in Ukrainian government, some of which are facing off against generational internal cultures.  Can it be done? Yes.  Will it be done?  Unknown
You are on record as stating it is “unlikely”.  Let’s see where it lands.  The good news in all this is that if we get a chance to find out the region will have been retaken in the first place.

Air Forces Commander told two L-39 trainer jets have collided. Three pilots have lost. 
Here first time photo of "Juice" with full-open face. His name was Andriy Pil'shchikov.
 

Senator Romney on Ukraine. Absolutely 100% solid.

I agree with Haiduk and Steve that there won't be any pro-russian insurgency in Crimea in case of UKR troops going in hot. But, yes, it is going to be hard to govern, for sure. Something good to look forward to anyway. 
It is quite hard to predict how the events will unfold exactly from now on. That raid was definitely fun though, even if only symbolical.

I never bought this parallel analogy.  Germany knew that the USSR was going to go all the way to Berlin, so they were fighting for their nation in an existential conflict.  Russia was in the same place in 41-43.  Russia today is not, at least not in a "Hey NATO/Ukraine is going to destroy us."  Russian political noise keeps trying to sell this but I honestly doubt the average Russian buys it.  For Russia this is a discretionary war.  It is not for Putin or his cronies but for Russia as a nation this war is entirely voluntary.  So the question of "what the hell keeps them going?" is a valid one.  This is one hell of an expensive "non-existential" war.

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I agree 100 percent.   If the democratic party suddenly turned into an anti Ukraine "let's spend our money on schools instead of war" type of party then those republicans would flock into supporting Ukraine.   They just will not agree with the other side on anything.   That's the state of US politics right now.   As much as I dislike Mitch McConnel I give him props for never faltering against Russia's aggression.   

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

I’m not sure how much congressional support will even exist once the primaries start since the rank and file Republicans may not want to offend the front runners and their enthusiastic supporters (I’m trying to be diplomatic),
Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be spinning in their graves -God rest their souls
I would have never imagined the Republican Party being the pro Russian dictatorship party.  
Sorry for rant

Amusing.
Last year people in this thread were saying exactly the same thing "lol, silly Russians. The Ukrainians will blow past that in a day." And yet, 11 months later, here we are.
I assume that even the Russians are professional enough to recognise that ditches across open paddocks aren't the only element of a defence line they are going to need. The funny thing about ditches under tree cover is that they're not very photogenic.
The tricky aspect of photographic analysis is interpreting what you can't see from the things you can. The Luftwaffe radar installation at Bruneval, for instance, was first identified because of long grass of all things. The Germans had ringed the site with barbed wire because they were worried about a ground attack or raid, or randos wandered up and having a butchers. The problem with barbed wire is that it's really hard to mow the grass in and around it, so over the course of six months or so a distinctive ring of tall grass sprouted up in the middle of an otherwise nondescript paddock in front of the manor house. "Now why would that happen" the British photo interpreters asked themselves, and working from there - and combining their suspicions with other intelligence threads - realised that they'd found a Würzburg , which led to Op BITING.
IIRC, a similar process was used to delimit the boundaries a number of the minefields in Normandy before D-Day.
Interpreting what you can't see based on what you can is also one of the reasons so much effort is put into studying enemy doctrine.
So, putting all that together, and relating it to 2023: we can see ditches. Great, in themselves they're no great shakes. But based on doctrine and experience over the last 6-12 months, what else should the Ukrainians expect on and around these new positions.
Ditches which are in the middle of open paddocks and perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are probably pretty dumb. The only thing dumber than that would be to assume that ditches in the middle of open paddocks perpendicular to the expected axis of advance are the only things the Russians are building.

Russian counter-battery radar Zoopark-M1 was hit by HIMARS as claimed, but as for me it's more similar to Excaliburs. Target was tracked by UKR "Shark" drone, having very cool zoom. Location - Novopetrykivka village, Donetsk oblast. About 15 km SE from Urozhaine. 
 

Ukrainian manpower has been at “a breaking point” for about 18 months now.  Do we have any actual evidence of the state of Ukraine force generation, or are we seeing doom and gloom?
The obstacle dynamic is interesting.  Minefields are supposed to be useless unless “covered”.  What appears to have changed is what it takes to “cover” a given obstacle.  It used to be dug in troop organizations, now it is UAS and ATGMs linked to artillery.  So the bill for effective coverage has gone down significantly.
This is all starting to add up to the blindingly obvious - this is not a shift to Defence Primacy, it is a shift to Denial Primacy.  We have been seeing denial in the air and on land (now projected onto the sea).  Denial effectively raises the cost of action to a level that is unsustainable.  One does not “hold ground” one simply makes the cost per foot too high.  We appear to be entering into an age of denial.  Closely linked to corrosive warfare concepts as Denial essentially is very expensive friction, the question remains whether or not the UA can overcome and project its own level of friction back onto the RA at a rate higher than the RA can sustain.
It has been a summer of slow grinding and not many signs of success but remember the metrics are not territory as much as they are systemic erosion.  Which side is eroding faster?  I do not know if the UA can reach a tipping point that leads to major advances.  We have until about Nov and then the whole thing will peeter out, if last Fall is an indication.  If the UA cannot achieve a major breakout by then, well there will have to be some difficult conversations I expect.

But Russia retains an almost unlimited capacity to lay mine belts and obstacles, all the way down to Azov and Perekop if it likes. It wouldn't surprise me if they're doing just that, in the absence of better options.
Manning these belts properly is another question of course, but to what extent does that make these fields less costly and time consuming to clear?
...And the Ivans are showing signs of moving up the tactical drone learning curve, which means fewer defenders can bombard and bleed out the sappers and assault troops while their movement is constrained. There's no way China isn't already supplying these lower tech systems to Russia in bulk.
Ukraine has a breaking point on manpower as well, which it's hiding well but it matters.

Question: How can you tell an extroverted Engineer from an introverted Engineer?
 
 
Answer: An extroverted Engineer stares at “your” shoes when talking to you!

Keep in mind the US elections are over a year away,and any policies that would harm Ukraine would take another 3 months or so to have any serious effects on their conduct of the war. Having said that I believe Trump getting back in office is a dangerous thing, but Ukraine still has a decent amount of time before any significant change in US policy can do damage. 

The matter of far-right or "pseudo far-right" (better to call them populists) support of Russia is not so ideology, but Russian money.  Russia generously fertilized both left and right politics, activating them, when it needs. 
But Le Pen doesn't support Russia after 24th Feb, though she afraids, that victory of Ukraine can lead to WWIII. Prime minister of Italy, for example, is representative of right spectre, but her level support of Ukraine is increadable. Polish ruling party and goverment also of right spectre, but they support Ukraine.  
Why some (far-) right political organizations has pro-Russian or false "appeasemnet" (for the cost of Ukraine of course) positions? Isolationism became popular. "We have many problems inside, but current government is wasting our taxpeyers money and military resourses for senseless support of corrupted Ukraine!" Or "do not provoke WWIII!!!" And little of ideology - as I can see in tweets of western Russia-supporters, they respect Russia for "tradicionalistic values", "Christianity", "fighting with LGBT", "fighting with Jewish-Masons world conspiracy" and they see Ukraine like a dangerous puppet in hands of leftists and globalists (OMG!!!!). Though indeed level of conservatism in Ukraine is comparable to Poland or Hungary. 
My personnal big dissapointment is US Republicans, which always were hawks in relation to USSR and Russia (McСain for exanle) and now MAGA-isolationism and QAnon ate brain of half of them and their followers    
 

Economist
1843 magazine | Ukraine
How Ukraine’s virtually non-existent navy sank Russia’s flagship
The Moskva was the most advanced vessel in the Black Sea. But the Ukrainians had a secret weapon, reports Wendell Steavenson with Marta Rodionova
July 27th 2023

On the day that Russia invaded Ukraine, a flotilla of warships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet steamed out of its base in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea towards a small island 120km (75 miles) south of Odessa. This solitary speck of land, known as Snake Island, had strategic value beyond its size. If it were captured, the Russian navy would dominate the west of the Black Sea and threaten Ukraine’s coast. Snake Island housed a radar station and was garrisoned by a few dozen Ukrainian marines and border guards – no match for Russian ships.
Russian jets screamed overhead. A patrol boat began shelling the island, and smaller vessels full of Russian marines approached the jetty. The Ukrainian defenders knew they had little hope of resisting. They were armed only with rifles and a few rocket-propelled grenades. Over the horizon appeared the great shadowing hulk of the Moskva, the Russian flagship, 186 metres long and bristling with missiles. It demanded over the radio that the garrison surrender.
“Snake Island! I, a Russian warship, repeat our offer. Lay down your arms and surrender or you will be bombed. Have you understood? Do you copy?” On a recording of the exchange, one Ukrainian border guard can be heard remarking to another: “Well, that’s it then – or should we reply that they should **** off?” “Might as well,” said the second border guard. The first then uttered the riposte that would become a clarion call of Ukrainian resistance: “Russian warship, go **** yourself!” The Russians stormed the island and all communications with the defenders were lost.
The following day, a medical team set off to the island to retrieve the bodies of the Ukrainian soldiers, all of whom they presumed were dead. As they approached, their rescue vessel was hailed by a Russian ship and ordered to stop. Soon, a dozen members of the Russian special forces boarded their boat and detained those on board. A Russian officer pointed over his shoulder at the dark grey outline of the Moskva in the distance. “Do you see her?” he said. “You see how large she is, how powerful? She can destroy not only Snake Island but all of Ukraine!”
“Do you see her?” he said. “You see how large she is, how powerful? She can destroy not only Snake Island but all of Ukraine!”
Meanwhile the Russian army advanced from Crimea westwards along Ukraine’s southern coast. Everyone expected that the Russian navy would support it with an amphibious landing, either in Mykolaiv, a naval base and shipyard that was now on the front line, or – the great prize – Odessa, which housed the headquarters of the Ukrainian navy. The navy mined possible landing zones. In Odessa volunteers filled sandbags and strung bales of barbed wire to defend the beaches. Russian warships appeared so close that people could see them on the horizon.
In Berdiansk, farther to the east, the Russians had captured a dozen Ukrainian ships. The Ukrainians didn’t want to risk any more falling into the hands of the enemy. With a heavy heart, Oleksiy Neizhpapa, the head of the Ukrainian navy, ordered the scuttling in Mykolaiv harbour of his two largest ships, including his flagship. “This is a difficult decision for any commander,” he told me. The Ukrainian navy was now reduced to around three dozen vessels, mostly patrol and supply boats.
Russian warships manoeuvred close to the coast, seeking to draw fire in order to make the Ukrainians reveal their artillery positions. Then they retreated out of range and targeted Ukrainian defences and command posts with missiles. The Moskva, the largest vessel of the Russian attack force, provided air cover which allowed the other ships to operate unmolested. Commercial shipping was throttled by the presence of Russia’s ships and mines. Ukraine, the fifth-largest exporter of wheat in the world, was unable to transport any grain.
Neizhpapa lost a number of officers and men in those perilous days. Crucially, though, radar installations, which allowed the Ukrainians to identify the position of Russian ships, escaped unharmed. Neizhpapa realised that he had one, untested weapon that might drive the Russian threat away from the coast. “We were counting on this being a factor of surprise for the enemy,” he said. “I was very worried that the enemy would know about it. After all, the enemy had a lot of agents on the territory of Ukraine. I was concerned about keeping it as secret as possible – and then, of course, using it.”
The Moskva, launched in 1983 under the name Slava, was one of three warships in her class to enter service. They were built in Mykolaiv in the last decade of the Soviet Union and designed to sink the ships of us navy carrier strike groups. Its American equivalent has a wider array of weapons but the Slava-class has missiles with a greater range, rendering her potentially more dangerous in a duel. The Soviet navy was proud of the Slava-class ships and sailors vied to serve on them. The cabins were comparatively large and there was a swimming pool in which the crew could decompress during the months at sea.
A messy process of disentangling naval assets began after Ukrainian independence. Russia and Ukraine divided the Soviet Black Sea Fleet between them. Russia got 80% of the ships, Ukraine 20%
The Soviet Black Sea Fleet, which welcomed the Moskva, also employed Neizhpapa’s father, who served as an officer on a rescue vessel. Neizhpapa himself was born in 1975 and grew up in Sevastopol. As a child, he drew pictures of warships and dreamed of becoming a sailor too. The Soviet Union was collapsing as Neizhpapa entered adulthood. He chose to stay in Sevastopol for naval school, rather than go to St Petersburg to study. Neizhpapa means “Don’t-eat-bread” in Cossack dialect. The name identified him as Ukrainian at a time when national identities were re-emerging. Ukraine became independent in 1991, and Neizhpapa was certain where his loyalties lay. “I realised that I did not want to serve Russia,” he said.
During Neizhpapa’s first year at naval school, Russians and Ukrainians studied together, but when the cadets were required to take an oath of allegiance, those who chose Russia left for training in St Petersburg. A messy process of disentangling naval assets also began after Ukrainian independence. Russia and Ukraine divided the Soviet Black Sea Fleet between them. Russia got 80% of the ships, Ukraine 20%. The two countries continued to share naval bases and there were even cases of brothers serving on different sides. Relations between the cohabiting fleets shifted according to the politics of the day, becoming more strained in the aftermath of Ukraine’s Orange revolution in 2004 and warmer when Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian president, came to power in 2010. There were tensions over money – salaries in the Russian navy were much higher – and sometimes with the local authorities. (The Ukrainian police would let off Ukrainians for traffic violations but fine the Russians.)
In 2012 Neizhpapa, by then a captain, was invited on board the Moskva, which had become the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. He remembers the imposing size of the vessel, its foredeck canted upwards to attack. It was armed with 16 huge missile-launchers, as large as aircraft fuselages. The command tower was flanked with the domes, curved dishes and antennae of several radar systems, and the deck swooped towards a helicopter pad overhanging the stern.
When he stepped aboard, Neizhpapa “felt pride and tradition and also a certain power in the cruiser. I would have never guessed that within a couple of years my naval forces would sink it.”
On April 13th 2022, Neizhpapa received information that the Moskva had been located 115km off the coast. The vice admiral is tall and imposing with steel close-cut hair and bright blue eyes that seem to reflect some distant, sunny sea. Mild-mannered but military-correct, he would not be drawn on how the Ukrainians found the Moskva. “I can’t answer your question in much detail, but I can tell you that it was identified specifically by the Ukrainian naval forces,” he said.
It’s difficult to find warships at sea, not least because they are designed to hide. A ship can go quiet – turning off communications equipment so broadcasts cannot be intercepted – or use camouflage to make it difficult to see from above. Satellites can spot a ship only when their orbit passes overhead and most of them cannot penetrate cloud cover. Even when skies are clear, large warships are mere mites of grey on a vast grey ocean.
Most radar is limited to a range of 20-30km. It can transmit and receive electromagnetic pulses from objects only in its direct line of sight. Anything below the horizon remains invisible, in the radar’s so-called shadow. The Moskva remained on the other side of Snake Island, over 100km away.
Neizhpapa and other naval sources were understandably reluctant to furnish details on when and how they found the Moskva. According to their version of the story, low cloud cover that day meant that radar pulses were reflected in such a way that extended their reach far beyond their normal range. “The warship was found by two radar stations on the coast,” an insider told us. “We were so lucky.”
But Chris Carlson, a retired captain in the us navy and one of the designers of the naval-war game, “Harpoon V”, which is used to train armed forces around the world, believes that other methods were employed. “I have a hard time attributing it to just plain old luck,” he told me. He suggested that, even if a coastal radar station managed to ping the Moskva, the information relayed by the echo over such a distance would have been insufficient to identify the ship or target it effectively. Carlson pointed out that in 2021 Ukraine had announced that its advanced over-the-horizon radar system, called the Mineral-U, had completed factory testing. It’s possible that the navy rushed it into active service, even though the Ukrainians – given the need for wartime secrecy – have never admitted that they possess this capability. Neizhpapa said that this was not the first time the Ukrainians had spotted the Moskva and other warships.
The Ukrainians had also deployed Bayraktars – Turkish-made drones that became cult icons in the early months of the war – against the Russian fleet for observation, distraction and attack. It’s possible that a drone may have spotted the Moskva. In private, Western military sources have hinted that the Ukrainians had more help in locating the Moskva than they like to admit. American military sources have confirmed that they were asked to verify Ukraine’s sighting of the Moskva, which they probably did through a maritime-surveillance aircraft. It was clear, however, from the predictable changes of position made by the Moskva, that her crew believed she was invisible.
The Ukrainian navy went into the war with a depleted force. After the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia seized much of the Ukrainian fleet, including 12 of the 17 ships moored in Sevastopol at the time. Training schools, artillery batteries and munition stores were claimed by the Russians. A cohort of Ukrainian naval officers, including three admirals, defected. Neizhpapa, who was at home in Sevastopol, was recalled to Odessa. He made it across the new de-facto border crammed into a car with his wife, two sons, the Ukrainian navy’s head of military communications and all the belongings they could fit. As they crossed to safety, Neizhpapa had a “feeling that I had been in captivity and was free at home”.
The Russians began to modernise their newly strengthened Black Sea Fleet; the Moskva was upgraded and ship-to-ship Vulkan missiles installed. These had a range of over 500km, which allowed them to target cities too. The Ukrainian fleet had been reduced to a handful of ships: one frigate and a few dozen smaller craft. The war in Donbas between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists stagnated into a stalemate and sucked up much of the armed forces’ attention and resources. When Neizhpapa was made commander of the navy in 2020 by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had been elected the previous year, there was no money or time to build new ships. Neizhpapa decided that what he needed most of all were radar systems for surveillance, minefields for coastal defence and long-range missiles, which Ukraine had also lost in Crimea.
The Luch Design Bureau in Kyiv, a state-owned munitions developer since Soviet times, had begun work on the Neptune, a subsonic shore-to-ship missile system, shortly after the loss of Crimea. Based on an old Soviet design, the Neptune would have a range of over 200km. It was ready to be tested around the time Neizhpapa assumed command. A technical expert involved in the design, who didn’t want to be identified, showed me a video on his phone of one of the first live-fire tests. An old rusty tanker had been towed out to sea as a target and a small crowd of engineers and naval officers gathered in a field close to the launcher to await the results. When the news came that the tanker had been successfully hit, they clapped and hugged each other.
Yet the government dragged its feet on funding production and it took an intervention by Zelensky himself for manufacturing to begin. “I was in this meeting,” said the technical expert. “He was intelligent, he understood that we had only three or four [operationally effective] ships in the Ukrainian navy and that it was not enough to protect the coastline.”
Production began in early 2021. The first battery – comprising two command vehicles and four launch vehicles, each able to transport and fire four missiles – had been built in time to join the annual military parade in Kyiv on August 24th, Ukrainian Independence Day. That December, Neizhpapa announced that six batteries would be deployed to the southern coast the following spring.
On the morning of February 24th 2022, the technical expert woke to the sound of “shooting everywhere, helicopter attacks everywhere”. Russia had invaded and the Neptune batteries were still parked near Kyiv; they were in jeopardy from seizure by Russian soldiers. The technical expert’s superiors told him to transport the missile systems to the south of the country. It took three days for the launch vehicles to reach the coast. “We were worried because they were very visibly military vehicles,” said the expert. The missiles themselves were sent later, hidden in trucks.
The Neptunes were first fired in March 2022 at Russian landing craft. In April, they probably targeted a Russian frigate called the Admiral Essen – that month she was retired from service for a few weeks, suggesting that the damage sustained was slight – and at smaller ships threatening Mykolaiv. A number of sources suggested the Neptunes were not wholly successful. The system was untested in combat and there were teething problems: with the radar, with parts failing, with the software for identifying targets. The technical expert told us that the missiles had been launched from the west of Odessa at a high altitude, which would have made them more easily detectable by Russian radar. “We don’t know exactly what happened,” he said, “but it seems the missiles were intercepted.” Engineers were dispatched to fix the problems.
Once the location of the Moskva had been confirmed on April 13th, Neizhpapa ordered two Neptune missiles to be fired at it. The technical expert showed me a video on his phone of what he claimed was the launch of the missiles that day. The launcher truck was parked in a thin line of trees with bare branches. At ignition, the cap of the launching tube, which looks like the lid of a rubbish bin, was dispelled from the barrel and crashed into a field of green spring wheat. A fiery roar and a trail of black smoke followed. Then the second missile was launched.
A fiery roar and a trail of black smoke followed. Then the second missile was launched.
Silence reigned in Neizhpapa’s command centre. The Neptune, which is five metres long, flies at 900km per hour and is designed to skim ten metres above the surface of the sea in order to avoid detection. Neizhpapa watched the clock tick through the six minutes that it was supposed to take to reach the target. For a long time nothing seemed to happen. Then Russian radio channels erupted in chatter. It was apparent that smaller ships were hurrying towards the Moskva. The radio traffic was garbled and panicked. Neizhpapa inferred that the ship had been hit.
It didn’t take long for news to spread. “People started calling me from all over Ukraine,” Neizhpapa said. “There was only one question: ‘Did it sink or not?’ I said, ‘I can’t answer that!’ Hours passed. I was constantly asked the same thing. I joked I wanted to get on a boat myself and go and look. I said, ‘Do you realise that this is a very big ship? Even if it was hit by both missiles, it wouldn’t sink immediately.’”
Some hours later, satellites spotted a large red thermal image in the middle of the sea. Officials from nato phoned Neizhpapa, he recalled, “to say that they saw something burning beautifully”.
The only publicly available film taken of the Moskva after she was hit is three seconds long. The sea is calm, the sky pale grey. The full length of the ship is visible as she lists sharply to one side, thick black smoke billowing from the foredeck. Her life rafts are gone, suggesting that surviving crew members had been evacuated. The camera falls away sharply as a voice is heard saying, in Russian, “What the **** are you doing?”
It’s apparent from the film that the two Neptune missiles struck the Moskva near the foredeck on her port side, just above the waterline. The fire may have been caused by the missiles themselves, or fuel tanks or ammunition magazines in that part of the ship which ignited. We may never know exactly what happened but the attack clearly caused the Moskva to lose power and propulsion. Sometime in the early hours of April 14th she rolled over and sank.
Why had the Moskva, which had capable radar and surface-to-air missiles, failed to detect and intercept the incoming Neptunes? Carlson, the naval expert, has dug into the possible reasons. The ship was in dry dock for repairs several times over the past decade but upgrades to her weapons and operating systems seem to have been delayed or done piecemeal. A readiness report, briefly posted online in early 2022 before being removed from the internet, showed that many systems were broken or not fully functional. “All her major weapons systems had gripes,” said Carlson on a podcast last year. Moreover, the Moskva’s radar and targeting tools were not entirely automated and relied heavily on well-trained operators. But over half the ship’s crew, which numbered 500, were conscripts who served only a year. In consequence, the sailors “had extremely limited training which would be considered woefully insufficient by Western standards,” said Carlson. “The Moskva was not properly prepared to be doing combat operations.” This was yet another example of complacency by the Russian armed forces that has been evident throughout the war. Even so, Carlson was astonished that none of her radars appeared to have spotted the incoming missiles.
Officials from NATO phoned Neizhpapa, he recalled, “to say that they saw something burning beautifully
Once the Neptunes struck, the crew seems, in a panic, to have left watertight doors unsecured. Studying a screenshot of the Moskva on fire, Carlson observed that “you can see smoke coming out of the shutter doors for the torpedo tubes...That tells me that the smoke had a clear path, and if the smoke had a clear path so did water and so [did] flame.”
The Russians have never admitted that Neptune missiles were responsible for sinking the Moskva; they claimed she suffered an accidental fire at sea. But only a few days later, they bombed a Luch Design Bureau facility in Kyiv in apparent retaliation. The Russian authorities have also never been open about the number of casualties, but up to 250 sailors may have died. On November 4th 2022, more than six months after the sinking, a court in Sevastopol declared 17 of the missing dead.
Despite the reports of their heroic deaths, the defenders of Snake Island were in fact alive. They were taken captive and held in prison in Crimea before being transferred to a prison in Belograd, a city near the border with Ukraine. Conditions were brutal. Temperatures fell to -20°C, yet the prisoners were housed in tents for the first few days. Frequently, they were interrogated, beaten and electrocuted. They had no news of the outside world, beyond the names of the cities captured by the Russians, with which the guards taunted them.
One day, the prisoners overheard a news report on the guards’ radio saying that the Moskva “was not floating properly”. The expression puzzled them for a while, before they realised that it was a euphemism for “sunk”. They began to cheer. “The Russians increased our torture,” said one of them, who was later returned in a prisoner exchange, “but this was a great moment of happiness.”
The sinking of the Moskva was a turning point in the war. Neizhpapa said that “our fleet, which was considered non-existent a year ago, is now winning against the larger force, thought to be unbeatable.” nato allies began to take the Ukrainian navy seriously. Ukraine has limited stocks of Neptunes but the Danes and Americans are supplying Harpoon missiles, which are similar to the Neptune but carry a bigger warhead. Previously, Neizhpapa admitted, this kind of weapon and support would have been a “dream”.
Sometime in the early hours of April 14th she rolled over and sank.
Having destroyed the air-defence umbrella that the Moskva provided, the Ukrainian navy was able to harass the Russian navy in the west of the Black Sea with drones and missiles, damaging and sinking supply ships, and destroying air defences and radar stations installed on gas platforms. In June 2022 Ukraine retook Snake Island and the Russian Black Sea Fleet withdrew towards Crimea, leaving the Ukrainian coast safe from amphibious assault. Turkey and the United Nations were able to broker a deal to allow ships into Ukrainian ports to export grain. “Now,” said Neizhpapa, “they keep their ships outside of the range of our cruise missiles” – even state-of-the-art frigates that are armed up to the gunwales.
The Ukrainian coast has been secured. Neizhpapa pointed out an area of 25,000 square kilometres where neither the Russians nor Ukrainians can now operate freely. “There’s a certain kind of status quo that we need to take over,” he said. Neizhpapa maintains that the only way to secure peace in the Black Sea is to throw the Russians out of Crimea. “In imperial times, all of the emperors always said that whoever controls Crimea controls the Black Sea. In Soviet times, they called Crimea the aircraft-carrier that cannot be sunk. Nothing has changed since then.”
I asked Neizhpapa what he missed about his home. He gazed upwards for a moment. “Honestly, I miss the sea near Crimea the most. It’s not the same as here. It’s brighter, more transparent.” 
Wendell Steavenson has reported on post-Soviet Georgia, the Iraq war and the Egyptian revolution. You can read her previous dispatches from the war in Ukraine for 1843 magazine, and the rest of our coverage here. Marta Rodionova has worked as a television journalist and creative producer.
 
https://www.economist.com/interactive/1843/2023/07/27/how-ukraines-virtually-non-existent-navy-sank-russias-flagship