Russia withdraws fleet from Crimea. PHOTO

Russia has withdrawn almost all ships from its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, concealing the majority of vessels in Novorossiysk, according to satellite images reported by the monitoring group Crimean Wind.

Occupiers have hidden nearly all “serious ships” in the port, including carriers of Kalibr cruise missiles: 2 out of 2 Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, 3 out of 3 Buyan-M-class small missile ships, 4 out of 4 Varshavyanka-class Project 636.3 submarines, and 1 out of 3 Karakurt-class Project 22800 SMS (small missile ships).

Additionally, they have relocated 3 Project 22160 Vasily Bykov-class patrol ships (one with the Tor missile system on board), 3 large landing ships of Project 775, 1 Ivan Gren-class landing ship, and 3 Project 266M Akvamarin-class minesweepers. 

OSINT researcher MT Anderson published satellite images from December 17.

It was reported in October that Russia plans to establish a base for the Black Sea Fleet in Abkhazia, a temporarily occupied territory of Georgia. Previously, Russia’s fleet was based in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol. However, Ukraine’s powerful attacks damaged some of Russia’s ships, prompting occupiers to seek a new place for deployment.