1) Excellent #UkraineWar#thread🧵 by @DAlperovitch on Russia's de facto maritime blockade of Ukraine's southern coast & some of the difficulties involved in lifting it.
2) For more on Russia's de facto maritime blockade of Ukraine's southern coast & the naval situation from the start of the war, significant elements of which still hold, do check out this #thread🧵 from March
5) While the report from the @WorldBank outlined (& linked to) in this @Reuters piece details the economic damage of the #UkraineWar, a not insignificant portion of which will be down to Russia's #maritime blockade of Ukraine's southern coast.
6) And this @Articles_of_War piece looks at the reasons Russia's #maritime blockade of Ukraine's southern coast remains de facto, as opposed to de jure.
Interesting @ForeignPolicy piece by Emily Ferris of @ISS_RUSI looking at Russia's reliance on & troubles with rail transport in its #UkraineWar
However, it's worth bearing in mind, particularly amid further talk about Odesa & Mykolaiv, that Russia also has a port opening problem.
Probably the first port Russian forces took in the first days of the #UkraineWar was Berdyansk. The first ships to enter arrived in the middle of March & around ten days later they appeared to have cleared just two berths, whereupon the Saratov was sunk.
It would appear that since the loss of the Saratov, Berdyansk has either not, or been little used. Whether this is due to the sunken hulk of the Saratov & other damage, or ongoing issues with the port's security from further attack, or both, is unclear.
The @USNavy aircraft carrier @USSHARRYSTRUMAN pulling into Trieste in Italy marks something of a lull what has been a huge amount of naval activity to reinforce & reassure @NATO allies since the start of the #UkraineWar
1) Okay, since "coastal-defence equipment" for #Ukraine has been mentioned by the British Defence Secretary, a few days late & to only slightly more than the usual lack of public demand (😉), a little #thread🧵with a few thoughts on what that might mean. #UkraineWar
2) For those interested in the wider context of what broadly still appears to be the state of play in the naval war in the Black Sea, this #thread🧵 posted a month ago, should still be of some use (though the situation ashore may have changed somewhat).
3) The key questions, therefore, are :
a) What might be supplied (predominantly in the British context, since that is who is making the suggestion), &
b) What effect might this have?
Inevitably, perhaps, 1st thoughts tend to turn to anti-ship missiles.
While a P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft of @Forsvaret_no tracks the Russian Navy Northern Fleet, including the big, nuclear-powered battlecruiser Peter the Great, as it deploys to intercept & observe #ColdResponse22
1) An excellent #thread🧵 by @WarintheFuture on the oft neglected southern front in the #UkraineWar & its importance, covering many aspects ashore, so here's a little additional #thread🧵 looking into some of the naval & maritime aspects that hopefully further enrich the picture.
2) As @WarintheFuture points out Ukraine's maritime south is economically vital to the country, handling 60% of its exports & 50% of its imports while containing a number of very large & important industrial centres, not least its 3rd largest city - Odesa.
3) So what has happened to this vital, maritime trade since the start of the #UkraineWar? Well, put bluntly - as @MarineTraffic demonstrates here - it has stopped. Nothing is coming out to help Ukraine's economy, & nothing is coming in to aid the fight.
1) Okay, since there seems to be something of an interest Russian military logistics at the moment, to the usual lack of public demand, a little #thread🧵 on why Russia's naval logistics, particularly in the Mediterranean, have always been a critical time limit on the #UkraineWar
2) An absolutely critical part of Russia's military buildup to its current #UkraineWar was & remains a series of very visible signals, from the High North to the Pacific, to @NATO & others, to not interfere.
3) The most visible of these tended to be at sea most notably with the massive reinforcement of the Mediterranean with two Slava Class cruisers - the Pacific Fleet's flagship Varyag & the Northern Fleet's flagship Marshal Ustinov. It is also by far the most logistically exposed.