Below Senior Fellow Can Kasapoğlu offers a military situation report about the war in Ukraine.
Executive Summary
• The Ukrainian military employed aerial and naval drones in tandem against Russian oil and gas platforms in the Black Sea.
• Now that the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad has lost power in Syria, Russian naval assets may be stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.
• The Kremlin’s forces continued to press in the direction of Pokrovsk, while Ukraine launched airstrikes in the Russian region of Kursk.
1. Ukraine Attacks Russian Black Sea Gas Platforms
The Ukrainian Navy executed a successful attack on Russian oil and gas platforms in the Black Sea. Kyiv has long targeted these platforms, which Moscow uses for maritime intelligence gathering. In September 2023, Ukrainian Defense Intelligence (GUR) forces offshore oil rigs, depriving the Kremlin of crucial facilities for monitoring the region.
Last week, in a novel approach, first-person-view (FPV) drones took off from sea drones before zeroing in on a Russian oil platform. The sea drone used in the offensive demonstrated two innovations: a three-hulled, trimaran design and a new type of warhead. These new features highlight the Ukrainian Navy’s ability to adapt and refine its operational concepts.
Ukraine has also begun to incorporate short-range air defenses into its unmanned naval warfare systems. In recent engagements, Ukrainian Sea Baby drones were spotted firing anti-aircraft guns and interceptors at Russian helicopters, likely the aircraft and injuring the onboard personnel.
2. Russian Naval Assets May Be Stranded in the Mediterranean
The fall of the Assad dictatorship in Syria is affecting the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, as Russian naval vessels may find themselves stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.
A Russian flotilla, forward-ported at the Kremlin’s main overseas naval base in Tartus, Syria, is now stuck in a difficult position. As the Assad regime, a loyal ally of Moscow, fell to rebel forces, the Russian naval deterrent sailed away from the base. But Ankara has invoked of the Montreux Convention, an international agreement governing the use of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits in Türkiye. The agreement strictly limits the passage of naval platforms that belong to belligerents in times of war: only vessels based in the Black Sea may return to their home ports, and only after submitting a to the Turkish government.
The flotilla sailing away from Tartus includes Grigorovich- and Gorshkov-class frigates, the , and auxiliary craft. Of these vessels, the submarine may face the most pressing circumstances.
The Montreux Convention states that the Black Sea littoral states may only transit the Bosphorus and Dardanelles “for the purpose of rejoining their base in the Black Sea for the first time after their construction or purchase, or for the purpose of repair in dockyards outside the Black Sea.” The Novorossiysk has been on combat deployment in Syria and can claim no such exceptions.
Moreover, even if the Russian surface vessels homeported in the Black Sea did manage to transit the straits, they would immediately become targets of the Ukrainian military. The remnants of Moscow’s Syrian naval presence appear to be stranded at sea for the moment.
3. Battlefield Assessment
Russian invasion forces have been advancing steadily toward Pokrovsk despite heavy resistance, the railroad lines from Selydove. They have now reached the outskirts of the town. , Russian formations have reached the Sukhi Yaly River, where Ukraine’s 214th Separate Special Opposing Forces (OPFOR) Battalion, with its heavy armor, remains a formidable obstacle.
fighting this week. In the north, the Russian military continued to exert pressure on the Kharkiv front, fighting for several hundred yards . Elsewhere in this sector, Vovchansk saw intensive combat activity.
Heavy fighting also continued in the Russian region of Kursk, with mounting and casualties on both sides, though no drastic territorial changes occurred. Visual evidence shows that Ukraine used Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) in Kursk, suggesting that Kyiv’s thinly stretched air deterrent has attained some freedom of .
In late November, Ukraine used the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) it received from the United States to hit a (SAM) system in Kursk. The successful ATACMS salvo likely paved the way for the current JDAM strikes in the embattled Russian region.