Interdiction is an operation to weaken or destroy the enemy army by disrupting or severing the flow of its supplies.
In Part I, I discussed how the Kerch Bridge can be brought down by air power.
In Part II, I discussed how the Crimean Rail System is exceptionally vulnerable to interdiction.
Today, we will explore the final piece of Crimean interdiction—severing Crimea’s supply by ports.
Once Kerch’s rail and road bridges are severed, Russia will be forced to rely on shipping to bring supplies to it’s
One major issue for Russia is the compact nature of Crimea relative to the range of Ukrainian weapons. For example, when the GLSDB becomes available in quantity, Ukraine will put 3 of Crimea’s 5 ports within range of its rocket artillery from the very start.
A firing position from the Chonhar Peninsula, which appears indefensible for Russia, would put Yevpatoriya and Feodosia within its 150km range.
Kerch Trade Port is just 141km from the northern coast of the Sea of Azov.
To emphasize, to say a port is within GLSDB range is not to say that the port’s facilities can be reduced to a smoldering ruin at will, or that the port can be rendered unusable on command. GLSDBs are on the slower side of munitions and are subject to interception.
Pantsir SAM batteries have gun batteries that may be ideally suited to shoot down incoming low-cost GLSDBs. We don’t know what the interception rate will be on these weapons, particularly at the longest ranges.
GLSDBs are not particularly powerful munitions, great for detonating ammunition in a warehouse, a fuel tank, command outposts, and such. Not as great at taking out an entire warehouse, or rendering port infrastructure entirely unusable by sheer bombardment.
How many GLSDBs Ukraine will get is still an open question. If Ukraine gets 600-700 GLSDBs, allowing it to hurl a wave of 150 each week at a given port would be a different type of scenario than if it got 150 GLSDB each month.
But it is probably fair to say that some GLSDBs will get through, and if Ukraine can send a wave of a few dozen GLSDBs at port facilities, this would be disruptive, and put the process of unloading Russian fuel and ammunition at risk.
As these port facilities come under Ukrainian attack, presumably civilian shipping to these facilities will go down dramatically, making the intelligence work of identifying when shipments of Russian arms and fuel are arriving at the ports easier to identify.
This will make it easier for Ukraine to save its GLSDBs and Storm Shadow missiles for when Russians are unloading ammunition and fuel at the port.
But the gravest early threat to Russian port resupply likely comes in the form of the Storm Shadow cruise missile.
Commercial ports have large unloading equipment and facilities that they require to function properly.
While GLSDBs may or may not be capable of taking down one of those giant cranes (for example), a Storm Shadow missile certainly could. There are plenty of other tempting port facilities needed for Russian logistics as well—fuel storage tanks, warehouses, and unloading equipment.
Certainly, to minimize civilian casualties, Ukraine should seek to attack these facilities in the middle of the night when they are not in use. But their removal should have dire consequences for Russian capacity for resupply.
The main challenge of such an operation is finding a good angle from which to launch the Storm Shadows so that they go over as little Russian-controlled territory as possible, and can approach their targets undetected. Storm Shadows can hug the ground, and with advanced topographical data, the small missiles can fly as little as 10-20m over the ground, making them very difficult to detect by radar.
However, if they approach within a few km, they are liable to be detected by Russian radar, so they should try to avoid any Russian-held position until they are close to their target. I.e. shooting them over 100kms of Russian-occupied territory to strike a target is unlikely to work. Shooting them straight over Crimea is a no-go.
However, thanks to the missile’s extensive 250km+ range, targeting any of Russia’s Crimean ports should not be much of a problem.
Kerch and Feodosia are clearly within the range of the Storm Shadow, and missile paths exist that should permit efficient approaches to these targets. They are also, as noted before, within range of GLSDB rockets, thus a combination of the two weapon types can serve to overwhelm or confuse enemy radar and SAM batteries as well.
The greater challenge is the western Crimean ports of Yevpatoriya, Sevastopol, and Yalta. Not only are these geographically better protected from an attack from the north by an airstrike (a Russian army being deployed north of it) but they can also be protected from a direct attack from the west by aircraft with the Black Sea Fleet.
However, Ukraine also has a weapon that will likely limit the activities of the Black Sea Fleet in the area—the Neptune and Harpoon missiles.
Ukraine has received several shipments of ground-launched RGM-84 Harpoon missiles. With a range of 180km, they exert a strong deterrent force against Russian frigates in the Black Sea. With improving Ukrainian air defenses from Western anti-missile batteries, the force of power has shifted in recent times.
Ukrainian naval missile batteries protected by air defense batteries are now so threatening, that Russian frigates are staying out of Harpoon range of Ukrainian positions in Western Ukraine.
In theory, the 300km+ ranged Neptune should be able to strike further, but thus far, Ukrainian missile batteries have been reluctant to engage Russian naval vessels at such extreme ranges. It’s unknown whether the Neptune is available in such limited quantities that most were used on the Moskva sinking, or whether they are being saved for a major strike.
But thus far, the most observable limitation on Black Sea Fleet operations has come from the deterrent effect of Harpoon batteries.
By flying low and fast, Ukrainian strike craft can evade radar detection except by very close enemy observers while staying within the defensive umbrella of the Harpoon.
If Ukrainian pilots can count on the Black Sea fleet to stay out of the 180km range, they have an opportunity to stay under the radar horizon at tree-top altitudes, and reach a strike point where they have a good angle of attack on the Russian ports, are within the 250km range of cruise missiles, and are within the fuel range of their aircraft.
For example, the Su-24 has an operational strike range of 615km with up to 3000kg of weapons and external fuel tanks. 2 Storm Shadow missiles would only be around 2200-2300kg. An Su-24 taking off from Kulbakino Airbase outside Myokolaiv could reach the launch point by flying only around 400km, leaving enough fuel for engaging afterburners for a quick getaway if necessary. (In a pinch, the aircraft could land at Odessa international airport, cutting around 100km off their return trip).
This means, at least the Port at Yevpatoriya (northwestern Crimea) which is both in GLSDB and Storm Shadow range at the start of the campaign should be fairly easy to knock out of commission.
The challenge will be in the southwestern corner of Crimea: Sevastopol.
As the home to the Black Sea Fleet (although by the start of the campaign, the fleet likely will have relocated 200km east to the Russian Naval Base at Novorossiysk), Sevastopol is Crimea’s largest port facility and is likely to have the tightest air defenses outside of Kerch.
As a consequence, attacks solely by Storm Shadow missiles are less likely to be as effective.
Thus, to render the western half of Crimea difficult to supply by Russia, better interdicting Sevastopol should be an early priority of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Therefore, once the land invasion of Crimea begins, an early objective should be the capture of the Tarkhankut Peninsula.
No major cities lie in this direction, nor are there any major geographic obstacles like rivers or mountains.
The Russians have prepared minimal defenses in this direction thus far, although this may change.
By capturing this minimally populated peninsula, Ukrainian RGM-84 Harpoon units can target any ship that approaches Sevastopol with ease, rendering shipment of goods to Sevastopol all but impossible.
International law recognizes the right of belligerents to blockade ports under siege, excepting goods to meet pure humanitarian needs (food, drinking water, medicine, etc.).
Ukraine could declare an ”exclusion zone” around the Port of Sevastopol, where any ship that did not first obtain inspection for war materiel from Ukrainian authorities beforehand would be subject to attack.
This would leave the isolated port at Yalta as the sole operable port in western Crimea. Lacking a railhead and separated from the rest of Crimea by the Crimean Mountains, relying on Russian shipping into Yalta would be a difficult way to supply Russian armies in Western Crimea.
To recap, in these first three parts, I’ve introduced how the Kerch Bridge, the Crimean Rail System, and the Crimean ports are vulnerable to Ukrainian attack. In particular, the western half of the Crimean peninsula including Sevastopol is fairly easy to isolate from Russian supply.
In the next diary (Part IV) I will finally be getting to how a land operation to capture Crimea might unfold.