Sea Control - Sea Control 478 - A Sober Analysis of Ukrainian Success in the Black Sea with Thord Are Iversen

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Links1. “On Understanding the Naval War,” by Thord Are Iversen, Reports by T.A. Iversen, October 5, 2023.2. Reports by T.A. Iversen.

Hey folks, it's Jared. Nate Miller is back as your host today. He's joined by Thornt Iverson to offer a more sober analysis of the war in the Black Sea. This episode was edited and produced by Andrew Frame. Here at SimSec, we aim to further international maritime peace and security through an exchange of ideas and the rigor of critical thought and writing. If you haven't already, please check out SimSec.org for new articles on the most important maritime topics. Our latest call for submissions is for the annual fiction contest. If you'd like to contribute to the discussion, check out the Write for SimSec tab to learn how you can submit articles for consideration.

Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Village Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pot of Iron Brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimbersman. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Hello and welcome to the Sea Control Podcast. I'm Nathan Miller. My guest today is Tord Iverson, and we're discussing his recent article on understanding the naval war. In the article, Iverson calls for a more sober analysis of Ukrainian successes in the Black Sea. Tord, welcome aboard. Could you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background, please? Yes, thank you for getting the opportunity to be here. I'm Tordar Iversen. I'm a former officer

in the Royal Norwegian Navy with experience both from afloat and ashore. I've had a lifelong interest in military history and operations, especially 20th century defense and security policy and everything that goes along with it. So that interest is the primary reason why my followers can see I cover a whole lot of topics beyond just naval topics. For close to a decade now, I have been struggling with chronic illness that put an end to my career in uniform. In the spring of 2021, when tensions began to rise in Europe, I started writing as The Lookout on Twitter, and that took me on a journey through quite a remarkable journey, I will say, through the Russian buildup, the invasions, and now over one and a half year of full-scale war in Europe.

My longer articles, I began with last November after considering that for some time, and I started writing under my full name a little over a month ago. I used the title Independent Defense Analyst, as I think that is the best description of what I do, my work, and how I look at things. But this is still only just a hobbit, though. Well, thank you. As a reminder to the listeners, all opinions expressed here are strictly our own and not reflective of any of the institutions with which we might be otherwise associated. I would also like to timestamp this recording.

We are talking the morning, for me, of October 18. So if there's anything that's happened in the Black Sea space or the conflict that is pertinent and applies to our conversation here, it could be that it hasn't happened yet because there will be some lag time between our conversation and when this episode airs. So the first thing that I wanted to ask you about, what really was the genesis for this article? What were you seeing in the media space and from other defense analysts that made you want to write this article as the title of the podcast will suggest a more sober analysis of Ukrainian successes? I saw a tendency, not immediately after the storm shadow strikes on Sevastopol,

But a few weeks after that started rising in the days before I published the article and a tendency that I see is that risks underestimating the Black Sea fleet and the challenges Ukraine is facing at sea. I also thought that many looked at the naval war through the wrong lenses and placed it on a too short timeline. And an example there is that people include the naval situation when trying to assess the successes of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. I see it a bit differently. On the danger of underestimation, I believe that many underestimated the Russians going into the Ukrainian counteroffensive in general, both in the media, commentators. But I also suspect that underestimation happened on the professional scene, at least in the West leading up to this. And you see that on Western statement, especially U.S. from pre-offensive war games and such, as opposed to how the events actually happened. And underestimating Russia, that leads to too high expectations on what Ukraine can achieve on what timeline.

And it also affects how people look at what resources Ukraine requires to achieve those results. And the latter is very important for discussions around Western support for Ukraine. So Ukraine has achieved a lot at sea. They have been very successful considering their limited resources. So what I'm writing and saying isn't downgrading their achievements in any way. But many tend to paint a very black and white picture of what has happened, while reality, as in most cases, and especially in a major war, it's much more nuanced. I think that's important context on how to look at the naval war, too. Well, speaking of timelines, I thought it was appropriate to kind of touch on something that you did in the article. You identified several different phases in the maritime conflict and how that kind of worked as an overarching storyline or as a better way to understand the naval war. Could you elaborate a little bit on that for the listeners?

Well, I'll start first by speaking a little bit about why I included that, because I think that's the necessary context to understand how the situation is today, to understand that one has to look back and see how things developed. And the naval situation in the Black Sea has developed largely independent on events on the ground of the ground campaigns. And it's been, as I see it, this is some place called this a multi-domain offensive or link everything. I see this more as an independent naval effort. It's done by the Ukrainian Navy and Ukrainian Special Services. And some key events happened and the key Ukrainian efforts began long ago in 2022. So in the article, I identified four phases. So if we are to include the pre-invasion buildup, that will be phase zero in my lineup.

So my phase one ran from the start of the invasion on February 24th and ran until the sinking of the Slavutlas cruiser Moskva. on April 13th or 14th. And in this phase, until it abruptly ended, the Black Sea fleet operated with impunity in the northwestern Black Sea, and they did the missions one would expect them to be. They established sea control in the northwestern Black Sea, effectively shutting down traffic to Ukraine. They conducted the cruise missile strikes. They maintained a threat of amphibious landing, running some demonstrations. To elaborate a bit there, I think the threat of an amphibious landing passed soon after the invasion because it was much easier to break out from Crimea than I anticipated. And as the ground offensive bogged down, I really didn't see much of a chance of a

big landing near Odessa because it was far ahead from the ground advances and the beaches there really aren't very good. If we were to see a landing before the war, I believe that would be in support of breaking out from Crimea, but very soon. But the Russians, they maintained that amphibious threat, and they may have succeeded tying down Ukrainian units in the Odessa area because of that. And then things set in more into a pattern. The Russians got complacent, as they have a tendency to do, and the Ukrainians struck back, sinking the cruiser Moskva, And then we entered another phase, phase two. And phase two, on my timeline, ran from the sinking of the Moskva

until the Russians withdrew from Snake Island. And that's part of the naval war. So a lot of back and forth, the Ukrainians striking Snake Island, the Russians running resupplies, they lost some patrol boats and the auxiliary Vasilybek. But when they withdrew from Snake Island, shifting over to the next phase, which also included the grain deal, the Russians didn't have a need to operate in the Northwestern Black Sea anymore. And that shift between phase two and three in July 2022, I think that's very

important because that's one of the key turning points which put us in a situation that lasts to this day. The Russians withdrew from the Northwestern Black Sea. And in this phase three, we saw Ukraine starting to strike back and the Russians were responding. The first large USV attack on sevastopol harbor was nearly a year ago on october 29th last year and that's how one of those efforts i see long-running efforts that have evolved over time and scored some notable successes recently but everything here development of the usvs themselves how to employ them everything has been a gradual approach from about a year ago and what the russians have done since then is mostly reactive except for the occasional cruise missile strikes, which the frequency and

intensity have dropped a lot over the course of the war due to high expenditures. And so now the phase we are in now, phase four, that began with the end of the grain deal. Then we got a Russian declaration that they would consider merchant ships running to Ukrainian harbors as military cargoes. The Ukrainians issued a similar statement. We got the notable USV attacks, which damaged the Northern Fleet Vopucha, the Russian tanker Sig. We had the strikes on Sevastopol and also the resumption of merchant traffic under way to ports in the Odessa area under the Ukrainian initiative. So a big shift there. The USVs get a lot of attention, but the most important factor, as I see it, limiting Black Sea fleet operations in the northwestern

Black Sea and currently hampering their efforts at maintaining a blockade, that's the threat of Ukrainian land-based missiles and the lessons they learned in 2022. That's what I see as the biggest factor affecting their operations. And Ukraine has had the initiative for well over a year now. The Russians are reacting, and they seem to struggle about what to do to regain the initiative. Most of their operations are defensive. Another thing that I found really interesting in your article, besides how you broke those spaces down, which I thought was very helpful, was your view on basing and the importance of Sevastopol in the larger context of the maritime war and the naval war, especially the Kilo-class subs. You had a perspective on that that, frankly, I haven't seen a lot in a lot of other analysts. Can you tell listeners a little bit about the importance of basing, especially in the kilo-class subs, and how that plays into their capabilities in the larger war? When I wrote the article, I was very much presenting the view that it was too early to conclude on deployments now. We are a few weeks later, and the caliber carriers are mostly based in Novorossiysk.

Now, that may be seen as a loss of prestige for the Russians, but I look at it, I look at what are the missions of those subs and ships, the Kilos, the Grigoroviches, Buyanems, and the Karakurt, and that is launching the occasional cruise missile strike. Now, does it matter where they are based on the Russian Black Seashore for conducting that mission? Now there's been a few weeks since the last cruise missile strike. No, I don't think so, because the SSM-30 caliber has enough range to cower most targets independent on where the ships are based. I've seen some come back to me

with a counter-argument that they are more predictable when they are in Novorossiysk and that it gives Ukraine warnings. But if we compare to long-range aviation missile strikes, they are now flying from Olenegorsk on Kula. And in the open source domain, we have a warning when they take off and you know can count the hours until they are in the normal launch area over the Caspian Sea so I don't really see that the ships they can go go out and they do go out without launching missile strikes so I don't see them being based in our assist really changing anything they have been removed from the threat of storm shadow or other strikes on Sevastopol but they are within range of the USVs. The Olenogorsky Gorniak, the Ropucha, was damaged just outside Novorossiysk

Harbor, so they aren't completely removed from the threat. But I see it as a dual reaction. There is a strike on a base, a ship or a sub is usually most vulnerable when in port. So dispersal, that is something I think everybody would have done when your naval base is attacked. And on On earlier occasions, the Russians have done the same, and then patrons have settled more or less back to the normal after a while. It hasn't happened yet on this occasion, but I think we will see at least some of them back in Sevastopol because of, as I see, the key feature of Sevastopol for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and that is for maintenance, especially the submarines.

The only yard who have worked on submarines in the Black Sea, at least until now, has in the 13th shipyard in Sevastopol, and they now have some issues with the dock being clattered with wreckage from the last strike. Also an important aspect when assessing the impact of these strikes is in strike campaigns in large wars, there's a tendency to overestimate the impact of single strikes. And in strike campaigns in large wars, pressure must be maintained over time. The Ukrainians have shown that they can hit the critical vulnerability of the Black Safeguard in Sevastopol with the storm shadow, but we haven't seen any follow-up strikes yet. The impact on maintenance will accumulate over time, but for now it's mostly about clearing

the damaged Ropucha and Kilo out from the dock. There haven't been other strikes on shipyard or other naval infrastructure in Sevastopol. Well, do you think in some ways, this is a follow-up question that we don't have on the outline, but do you think in some ways that the Ukrainians are maybe a victim of their own success in a way because the Russians are moving their basing back and the Russians are more aware of their capabilities? Or do you feel like that the strike that they had in Sevastopol was maybe the most effective use of that capability? When it comes to assessing this, I see that most of those claiming major success and victory are observers in the West. There was a very good statement by the Ukrainian Navy spokesperson to The Guardian, I think it was, that was much more muted. If I remember the quote correctly, they used the term a technical knockdown, not victory, and pointed to the fact that the Black Sea Fleet retains a large amount of ships and capabilities.

So it's easy to get fixated on these single events because they tend to take the Russians by surprise. So they can seem embarrassing. Now, the limiting factor for Ukraine here is, of course, the munitions availability. Naval targets isn't the only priority for Storm Shadow, and these exist in limited numbers. So I think we will see more strikes on Sevastopol, but the means can vary. It can be domestic-made UAVs, it can be storm shadow, it can be new USV raids. So I think it's important to remember that the Black Sea Fleet isn't defeated. When we count the losses, it's the Moskva and then with its auxiliaries and smaller

patrol boats, but the Russians are more hampered by leadership issues, systemic issues, and I think by the task that the Black Sea fleet has been given from high command in Moscow. You also mentioned in your article that the grain deal and commercial shipping traffic in the Black Sea, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but you were relatively dismissive of the increase of shipping being an indicator of strategic success because that shipping can be easily reversed. My thought was, though, isn't that the point of the sea denial along the coast is to increase the shipping? So I guess, what is your perspective there as far as the grain deal and getting grain in and out of Ukraine? The resumption of traffic to Odessa, it's a positive

development and it has progressed better than I initially thought possible back in summer when the Ukrainians started talking about it. But to measure the success here, both for the Ukrainian economy and for the world's food supply, what matters is the output in volume or the tonnage that can be assessed. So while we now are approaching the final days of the grain deal, that's when Russia interfered with inspections and delayed them, so output fell. But it's still well below the period last winter when the grain deal sanctioned properly. Now this is just a rough estimate, but we are at around a third to a quarter of the ship traffic that the grain deal achieved during the best months. So as I sit on achieving strategic success in a long, large war such as

It's not just reaching an objective or ticking a box, but resumption of traffic as a condition. And it's a condition that must be maintained over time, preferably increased tonnage and the number of ships. That's the key variable that one has to measure success. So on SEER reporting on what's most restrictive for or what's hampering Ukrainian agriculture sector now. That's the costs involved in export. And I'm no economist, so I can't comment on that. But I think there's a connection to the volume that can be transported. And we'll see. Hopefully, the Ukrainians can increase that. But war is inherently unpredictable. And as I wrote,

the traffic and the patterns that have been achieved now, they are vulnerable to incidents and deliberate Russian actions. And the UK has declassified intelligence on a couple of such occasions or Russian attempts. There was an attempted strike against both carrier alongside in Odessa with the SSM-30s, but the missiles were intercepted before impact. And there was also some statements that the Russians were thinking about or considering covert mining of the routes currently used. I think that is something to remember when assessing success, that it has been a success, but the key variable is tonnage, but it's vulnerable. Russia has been deterred so far from directly targeting neutral merchant ships, but it's a political decision. They have

the capability to do so. The Black Sea Fleet has the capability, and they will retain that capability for the foreseeable future. This comes down to a political decision, so I won't try to assign a probability to this happening. In the end, this comes down to the decision of one man in Moscow, President Putin. But the Black Sea Fleet has robust anti-surface warfare capabilities if they overtly choose to take the step and target neutral merchant shipping. And incidents can be anything but things we can foresee and inward things happen that we can't predict. There's been an increase now in mine strikes on the Danube anchorage, for instance. Damage has been limited and it doesn't seem to have a big impact on traffic, but things can happen. So we shouldn't

be blinded by success and forget that there's a potential for things to happen that can change this. And of course, this is something I think the Ukrainians and Western backers are thinking about, but this is largely up to Russia's decision if this traffic can be maintained or not. That's my view on it. Well, my last question for you is, have I missed anything? Is there anything that you want to add to the conversation or that you want to leave the listeners with? Yeah, I have a couple of points. And then the first one goes mostly on how to understand the war, how to read the reporting. And in general, on the war, I'll say to listeners that be wary of hasty tabloid and uncoveted conclusions. Many naturally want to see Ukrainian successes,

but there's the tendency in some corners that this wish to see Ukrainian success is mixed in with the analysis of the war and understanding of the war. And this can lead to a wrong picture of actual events but most importantly of the effects of these events and measuring effects is difficult the war may seem transparent but in most aspects and i've been watching this closely since the build-up in most aspects it isn't there's a lot going on that we don't see that impacts how the situation develops and also in the naval war there are a lot of reports and claims that gets reported those facts. I am very skeptical on claims on damage or engagements until there's proper evidence surfaces. And I think we've seen now when Russian ships get real damage, in most cases,

the evidence surfaces somehow, pictures leak or there are statements. There were some incidents, reported incidents last week that are involving a big of class OPV, but I'm not sure anything actually happened there. I haven't seen any evidence that will make me come to the conclusion that damage was inflicted. Also, when we discussed the naval war, I planned on mentioning this earlier, but we tend to overlook the FSB Coast Guard and their role in the naval war in the Black Sea, and they have a sizable fleet of patrol boats and are very involved in the Russian defensive effort against the Ukrainian USV operations, but also the special forces insertions on northwestern Crimea. So they aren't mentioned very often, but when one looks at

satellite imagery, especially of northwestern Crimea, and see something that can be identified as a patrol boat, but you can't see what it is, it's a good chance that's actually the FSB Coast Guard. I don't think we should forget them, even though they're not Navy. To sum up this, Ukraine has achieved a lot in the naval war. They hold the initiative, but Ukrainian victory isn't predetermined. That's a key reason why I think we shouldn't underestimate the Russians. there's uh unfortunately there's a long war also at sea still ahead of us well i'm sorry but that is all the time that we have for today i'd like to thank my guest thor iverson where can we find you online and what are you working on next my primary channels that's x or twitter and sub stack

for longer articles so for listeners who aren't subscribing to my sub stack please consider doing so because that gives motivation to write new longer articles. I'm also on Blue Sky but that's a secondary channel for now. I'm not sure what the next longer piece will be. There's a lot going on now both in the war, the initiative on the ground is changing. I've been spending a lot of time looking at Novaya Zemlya and the Russian weapons test so we have things going on on the sea floor here in Europe, and especially the Baltic. So next long piece will probably be something more on the war in general or on ground developments, but there will be more naval articles in the future. And follow me on X or Twitter in my daily reporting. You see, I try to cover a lot of ground,

way too many topics, really. There's a lot to keep track of. But naval content is something there will be more of, both in the long reads and, of course, in the daily reporting. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here and to try something new. This is my first step beyond delivering written content. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And to the listeners, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.

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