Does the US really want to sink the Russian fleet in the Black Sea?
Shortly after Reuters released exclusive news that the White House was trying to send advanced anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, an official in Kiev said the United States is preparing a plan to sink Russia's Black Sea fleet.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko tweeted (and later deleted): “ The United States is preparing a plan to destroy the [Russian] Black Sea fleet. The effective work of Ukrainians on [Russian warships. ] convinced [the United States] to prepare a plan to unblock [Ukrainian] ports. The deliveries of powerful anti-ship weapons are under discussion “.
Gerashchenko cited the Reuters report on Washington's effort to ship Harpoon and Naval Strike Missile to Ukraine. The missiles have a range of up to 185 km for the much more modern Naval Stike than the Harpoon, and are expensive, but effective. The Norwegian-designed NSM uses composite materials that also provide it with partial stealth capability.
Three White House officials then stated that the measure was not decided and was only under consideration, also due to the practical difficulties of sending Harpoon (the NSMs are also on mobile structures) which would have required disassembling a launcher from a ship.
Responding to a question from Newsweek, the State Department did not deny that it was working on a plan to eliminate the Russian fleet, and the Defense Department flatly denied the Ukrainian official's claims about the arms transfer. "I can definitely tell you that's not true," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday afternoon. The Pentagon's denial, however, only applied to the Ukrainian official's claim that the United States was helping to sink the Black Sea fleet and did not refer to the proposed transfer of anti-ship weapons. So Ukraine could, in theory, receive the weapons in question.
Gerashchenko said the attack would help to open Ukraine's ports, a theme which, as you know, is also used for propaganda purposes against Russia, presented as the hunger of the Third World. Russia currently controls the Black Sea and maintains a blockade on the Ukrainian coasts, but, at the same time, it cannot transfer other ships from the Baltic, the Mediterranean or the Far East, because Turkey, by applying the Treaty of Montreaux, has closed the straits to military ships. The UN has called for an easing of restrictions at sea to allow food exports from Ukraine to help alleviate the global food shortage.
But would it be possible to destroy the Russian Black Sea fleet or, at the very least, to create a safe corridor for commercial ships to reach Odessa? It would not be easy at all: first of all there is a clearing and control of a wide enough corridor of the sea to allow safe commercial traffic. Therefore we should avoid that Russian ships reach at least 250-300 km from the Ukrainian coasts, and therefore avoid that even the planes with anti-ship missiles arrive in that area. There is also the problem of Russian attack submarines, however present in the Black Sea. This is a challenge similar to that of imposing the No Fly Zone. Will the US want to go that far?
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The article Does the US really want to sink the Russian fleet in the Black Sea? comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-usa-vogliono-veramente-affondare-la-flotta-russa-nel-mar-nero/ on Sun, 22 May 2022 13:30:36 +0000.