Vladimir Putin has put his top nuclear submarine specialist in charge of the Russian navy after a series of successful Ukrainian drone strikes that sank several of Moscow’s warships.
Admiral Alexander Moiseev, 61, was named acting commander-in-chief after the Kremlin chief reportedly fired former incumbent Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, who had held the post for five years.
Yevmenov, also 61, paid the price for saving Russia’s Black Sea fleet from Ukrainian kamikaze naval drones.
Moiseev, meanwhile, faces an immediate crisis as the navy’s warships have not been put to sea for six days amid the terror of multiple shipwrecks.
But other analysts suggest Moiseev’s promotion from commander of the Arctic-based Northern Fleet is intended to send a signal to the West about the threat of nuclear war.
A ‘Hero of Russia’ – the Kremlin’s highest honor – the former nuclear submarine captain was the first man to launch satellites into space from a submerged craft and launched a Shtil-1 rocker from the K-407 Novomoskovsk in the Barents Sea in July 1998.
Moiseev’s entire active career was spent on nuclear submarines and he was known to have tested Russia’s latest weapons, with submarines forming a crucial part of Moscow’s ‘nuclear triad’.
Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov (right, pictured with Vladimir Putin 2-L) has reportedly been sacked from his position as the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy following a series of successful Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow’s warships
Admiral Alexander Moiseev, 61, was named acting commander-in-chief after the dictator abruptly fired former incumbent Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov
Yevmenov, 61, paid the price for saving Russia’s Black Sea fleet from Ukrainian kamikaze naval drones
The moment the Russian warship Sergey Kotov was hit by a Ukrainian kamikaze naval drone
Ukrainian attack on a Russian landing ship in Novocherkassk
Independent Russian media outlet Vot Tak TV reported: ‘The reasons for Yevmenov’s resignation were not revealed, but they seem obvious.
‘The complete helplessness of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, which continues to lose warships at a rate of one vessel per month in confrontations with Ukrainian naval drones, as well as deep systemic problems in managing the Russian fleet.’
There has yet to be a formal announcement of Moiseev’s promotion, but this is widely seen as a matter of time.
Last Tuesday, the £51 million Sergey Kotov patrol vessel, one of Putin’s newest naval vessels, was sunk by a swarm of unmanned MAGURA V5 attack drones near Feodosia in occupied Crimea.
Footage purports to show the time of the big explosion in darkness close to the coast.
The ship normally has a crew of 80 – and the fate of those on board is still unclear.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said last week that ‘The Russian Black Sea Fleet is a symbol of the occupation. It cannot be in the Ukrainian Crimea,’ in an apparent reference to the attack.
Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov said the ship had been hit earlier but was destroyed after the overnight attack by maritime drones.
– As for the crew, the details are being worked out. There are dead and wounded. But it is likely that some of the crew managed to evacuate,’ he told Ukrainian media.
There was no official response from the Russian Ministry of Defense.
That attack followed weeks after Russia’s large amphibious assault ship Caesar Kunikov was also destroyed in a similar maritime operation, prompting the Kremlin to dismiss Admiral Viktor Sokolov, 61, from his post as commander-in-chief of the Black Sea Fleet.
A GoPro video, taken by sailors aboard the doomed vessel, showed in shocking detail how navy men desperately tried to fight off the oncoming drones in an intense 20-minute sea battle before their vessel was destroyed in a fiery explosion.
The warship was lost on February 14, but the footage was only released last week by Russian Telegram channel FighterBomber.
The hellish, chaotic scene saw a small group of sailors unload their weapons into the murky water. Explosions rang out around them as one by one the drones slammed into the ship’s hull, lighting up the night sky.
Despite the crew firing thousands of rounds at the oncoming threat, the Russian battleship was powerless to defend itself against the flotilla of high-speed, high-explosive drones controlled by Ukrainian operators hundreds of kilometers away.
No official death toll has been released, but local reports suggest that several crew members were lost when the Caesar Kunikov sank.
Footage purports to show the ship under fire in Crimea, the latest blow to the Russian navy
The photo shows the Sergey Kotov patrol ship, a 308-foot warship that entered service in 2022
Stunning footage, filmed by a GoPro camera, shows the Russian crew of the amphibious assault ship Caesar Kunikov fighting their final battle with Ukrainian naval drones off the coast of Crimea
Explosions rang out around them as one by one the drones slammed into the ship’s hull, lighting up the night sky
Russian crew members are seen firing into the night as Ukrainian drones target their ship
Measuring just 18 feet and capable of delivering a payload of up to 200 kg (440 lbs) over a range of 400 km (250 miles), the MAGURA V5 unmanned drones have proven invaluable in their attacks on Russia’s vessels in Black Sea.
Russia has lost more than a quarter of its fleet – around 21 ships – since February 2022, including the early 2022 sinking of its flagship Moscow in a Neptune missile attack from Ukraine.
The Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in Sevastopol was also hit by a missile attack last year.
Now, as the war rumbles into its third year, Ukraine is looking to expand its supply of the ‘game-changing’ seaborne drones to counter Russian attacks in Crimea.
“Naval drones are a constant need,” a spokesman for official fundraiser UNITED24 told MailOnline last month.
‘Since February 24, Russia has fired over 4,500 missiles at Ukraine, 20% of which have been launched from the sea. Having lost 80% of its navy in 2014 due to the occupation of Crimea, Ukraine had no means to counter these attacks.
‘However, on 29 October 2022, naval drones marked a turning point by damaging three Russian vessels, including the flagship Admiral Makarov, in a historic first strike carried out entirely by unmanned vessels.’
They said the small and fast unmanned surface vehicles had ‘quickly changed the course of naval warfare’ and allowed Ukraine to ‘bury… Russian arrogance’.