Russia’s navy has moved its KILO-class submarines from Sevastopol, likely because the Ukrainians have shown they are capable of striking Crimea, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in an assessment Tuesday morning.

What British military intelligence says:

• Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Command has almost certainly moved its KILO-class submarines from its home port of Sevastopol (Crimea) to Novorossiysk in southern Russia’s Krasnodar Territory.
• Most likely, this happened due to a recent change in the local security level, in the context of increasing Ukrainian long-range strike capabilities.
• In the last two months, the headquarters of the fleet and the main airfield of naval aviation came under fire.
• Obtaining a base in Crimea for the Black Sea Fleet was likely one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motivations for annexing the peninsula in 2014.
• Now the security of the base is directly undermined by Russian aggression against Ukraine.

(article photo: ©Serhiy Fokin|Dreamstime.com)

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