Last week, the last remaining warship – a Project 1135 class patrol frigate – slunk quietly out of Sevastopol harbour, which had been the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since 2014. Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk suggested we should “remember this day.”

I have cautioned previously about drawing too much hope overall from maritime success in this conflict, but what does this embarrassing withdrawal mean more widely? Operationally, the loss of the port is significant although it has been a long time coming. But is the scale of the embarrassment sufficient to have a strategic effect?

From a pure maritime perspective, this is the last in a long list of humiliations suffered by the Black Sea Fleet since the 2022…