After the destruction of the cruiser, the command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation was afraid of losing the last three warships, taking them away from the Ukrainian coast, and this gave the Armed Forces certain opportunities.
After two Ukrainian missiles on April 14 The Moscow cruiser sank, leaving the Russian Black Sea Fleet with only three large warships. The best and most important of them is the new frigate “Admiral Makarov”.
And this makes the 125-meter ship the most valuable target for missiles and drones of the Ukrainian Navy, – writes Forbes. The publication admits that it does not know for sure whether the Ukrainian Bayrakteary and Neptune are hunting Admiral Makarov, as well as two other ships of the same class. In any case, the command of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea is aware of the danger. Numerous evidence suggests that Admiral Makarov's skipper is trying to keep the frigate away from the Ukrainian coast. The range can protect a Russian frigate. But because of it, the ship is not able to fulfill its military role, namely to protect other ships of the Black Sea Fleet from air and missile attacks.
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Introduced in 2017, the Admiral Makarov is the third, last and most modern ship of its kind. All three frigates of the Admiral Grigorovich class are part of the Black Sea Fleet. Each such ship is armed with 24 Buk medium-range missiles. In addition, they have 8 Caliber missiles on board. So frigates can accompany other ships as well as attack targets on land.
Admiral Makarov is a small ship. Its displacement is only 4,000 tons, and can accommodate up to 200 crew members. So it is more than twice as small as the American Arly Beck-class destroyers that form the basis of the US Navy. However, Russia is currently unable to build a larger ship than a frigate. Ironically, the main reason for this is the current war against Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia purchased large marine engines from Ukrainian manufacturers. After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, Kyiv stopped exporting to Russia, including marine engines, which are needed to build any fast modern ship with a tonnage of 5,000 tons and above.
So since 2014, the Russian Navy has lost the ability to build large warships. That is why they could not replace the old Soviet ships like the Soviet “Moscow”. The latter was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. The ship was old, did not undergo major modernization, and its long service began in 1983. However, there were 16 Vulcan missiles, 64 S-300 launchers and 40 Osa missiles on board the Moscow. But all these missiles failed to protect Moscow from the Ukrainian Neptunes. The ship burned and sank, taking with it a large part of the crew of 500 sailors.
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The destruction of “Moscow”, as well as the sinking of the landing ship “Saratov” before, made the command of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation nervous. So the surviving frigates were taken away. When Russian ships leave a port in the occupied Crimea, they stay 100 miles off the Ukrainian coast, hoping that Ukrainian Neptune missiles will not catch up to them. But it also means that frigates are not able to do their job. This allowed the Ukrainian army to destroy the Russian garrison on Snake Island.
Ukrainian TB-2 Bayraktar drones neutralized Russian air defenses on the island and then began hunting for targets at sea. On Monday, they damaged and possibly sank Raptor-class patrol boats. Without the protection of frigates, these boats were easy prey. The departure of Russian ships from the Ukrainian coast was in fact tantamount to the destruction of the last frigates of the Black Sea Fleet. What's the point of these ships if Russia can't use them? At the same time, the Ukrainian Navy would no doubt like to sink Admiral Makarov and two other ships in his class. Today it was reported that one of the Russian frigates may have suffered from the Ukrainian attack. It is possible that it was “Admiral Makarov”.
