Thread by @Mi_Petersen38

Admiral Vladimir Sokolov is commander of the Black Sea Fleet. He is considered by his peers to be battle-tested and highly competent. But several recent defeats show how he's lost the initiative and is hampered by systemic challenges and probably failure of imagination. 1/10

In 2016, Sokolov was the commander of the Northern Fleet detachment that conducted operations off the coast of Syria. The detachment included the Admiral Kuznetsov and Peter the Great. 2/10

From November 2016 to January 2017, the group conducted operations in the Med, including some 420 combat sorties, according to the Defense Ministry. Nevertheless, the environment at sea was permissive, a factor that would contribute to general naval overconfidence in 2022. 3/10

That year, Sokolov was handed the BSF after previous commander Igor Osipov suffered a string of high-profile losses, including Moskva and Snake Island. Sokolov was given more funding and resources to shore up the defense of Crimea in general and Sevastopol in particular. 4/10

That he accomplished, including setting up a reasonably effective integrated surface and air defense network in Sevastopol. He's also maintained a trickle of strikes into Ukraine and kept up a (leaky) blockade-in-being. 5/10

But he's also been criticized in Russia for being too passive in the face of the enemy. More, systemic problems with the navy and a failure of imagination have combined with Ukrainian ingenuity this summer to turn the tide against the Black Sea Fleet. 6/10

The attacks on the Olenegorsky Gornyak, Sig, and Ivan Khurs, SOF small boat raids on Crimea, the recapture of the Boyko Towers and resulting loss of weapons and sensors left on them, the Kerch bridge attacks; these were all evidence of Sokolov's failures before Tuesday. 7/10

Ukraine also may be forcing Black Sea Fleet combat vessels into escort operations for civilian ships, drawing them off of other missions such as sea denial tasks or port and bridge protection in the NW Black Sea. 8/10

Tuesday, Ukraine again took advantage of systemic challenges & that lack of imagination. Limits on Russian dry dock space restrict repair options, but the failure of imagination in placing two critical warfighting assets in a fixed dock within strike range is astonishing. 9/10

Tactical failures this summer have cascaded, Ukraine has firmly seized the naval initiative, and Sokolov is likely feeling pressure to take greater risks with the fleet in order to "restore" the navy's eroded position and re-establish a balance of denial in the NW Black Sea.10/10