This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot)

> Russia's Black Sea flagship vessel, the Admiral Makarov, was damaged and possibly disabled during an audacious Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, according to an examination of video footage.

> After examining stills photos, it concluded: "Only the Admiral Makarov matches this class for the Black Sea Fleet." The video stops when a drone reaches the Russian boat, it added, with the unmanned vessel "Likely" blowing up on impact.

> In the wake of the Sevastopol attack the Kremlin said it was pulling out of a UN-brokered grain deal that allows civilian ships to export grain and fertiliser from Black Sea ports.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: drone^#1 Russia^#2 Sea^#3 Ukraine^#4 attack^#5

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The Russian response? Starving non-combatants by not allowing grain ships to transit the Black Sea.

It’s totally on brand, though.

Absolutely.

I wonder if it would be possible for Ukraine to get some actual torpedoes into range of these ships

again

I tjpugh their black sea flag ship had transformed into a flag sub.

The move of a criminal organization with a captive army.

Would be kind of a suicide mission but they could charge into Sevastapol with a torpedo boat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Kronstadt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=temgmfPL1tE

Don't know if the same would still work. But seeing them being able to get drones in I could also see a real possibility for getting torpedo boats in.

If they can fly a drone there, I’m sure they could get an unmanned boat to follow the drone’s signal.

Technically I think it would be possible. I’m not sure of the barriers that prevent it.

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They used drone boats.

But fitting one of those drone boats with a real torpedo would very much fuck up the Russian fleet there.

Edit: I didn't develop this talking point. I don't believe the drones took they path Russia says they did.

But that is all 100% irrelevant to my point. My point is that this is one of the smarter things Russia has done lately. No I'm not saying it's acceptable or defensible or smart, only smertER. Certainly smarter than sending a half million untrained unequipped civilians to the front lines.

I say this because they actually stand a chance of maintaining their remaining shred of reputation on a global scale (ie. not with the West), despite literally preventing ships of food from going to nearly-starving countries. Because they've tied the attacks on Sevastopol directly to the grain shipment corridor, doing so with no evidence but in what is basically an irrefutable way since nobody is going to provide evidence to the contrary of how they carried out a successful, novel attack on Russia's Black Sea navy stronghold. In the short term they'll give away grain to pretend they're not deepening famine, while it's probably Ukranian grain they've stolen anyway.

It simply isn't the stupidest thing they've done this month.

Unedited original post: They actually made a smart argument - they allege that navigationL data pulled from a downed drone indicates it was launched from a vessel in the grain corridor and navigated through the corridor before turning towards Sevastopol.

It's probably not true, but at least it's a justification for ending the grain transport agreement thing.

I am of course NOT saying I believe it's a valid justification. But at least it is A justification, when usually they don't bother or just make something nonsensical up.

And you believe that they didnt just fake up some nav logs because?

This is... was their replacement flag ship.

Or like... a remote controlled torpedo?

No

I said I didn't believe that

I said "It's probably not true"

Sure they just did something similar with a surface drone. Long range propulsion is tough for a torpedo though, unless it's just below the surface and has snorkel like WWII U-boats to power a diesel.

Normal torpedoes don't have hundreds of km range, maybe a few dozen.

So you just repeat Russian propaganda lies, got it

No, the point was not that the facts are true.

The point was the facts are probably false, but they logically support Russia's actions.

In order to show they're false, what's necessary? Well, whoever carried out the first wartime surface-drone attack on a ship in the history of the planet, needs to give away information about how they actually did it. That's not going to happen obviously.

So, Russia has come up with a scenario where they can do something they desperately wanted to do - kill the grain program - while having "A justification" (to quote myself from above with all the same caveats) to do so.

Again, they usually aren't that smart.

It’s no different than how sanctions effect non combatants around the world. Somehow innocent people always carry the water.

Kinda like how when you bomb the #2 al Qaeda leader, everyone left gets promoted.

Oh nosers, russia! Not another one! :)