Russia's Black Sea fleet: aging ships under threat

Recently, reports appeared in the media suggesting that Russia had withdrawn ships from the Black Sea. It was suspected that Moscow wanted to protect the ships that remain part of the Black Sea Fleet by moving them away from potential attack sites.

As noted by Karolina Modzelewska, a journalist for Wirtualna Polska, the Russian Black Sea Fleet has recently been going through a rough period, dealing with both Ukrainian attacks and internal problems.

The Ukrainian agency Unian reports that ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are still present in temporarily occupied Crimea. According to Captain Dmytro Pletenczuk, spokesman for the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, among them are supply ships, damaged landing ships, and the Ukrainian landing ship "Konstantin Olshansky," which the occupiers seized in 2014 and are now trying to repair.

"In Crimea, there are still support ships, so to speak, of the auxiliary fleet. These are units that are essentially part of the fleet but also belong to the military. They are not civilian units, but they do not have powerful weapons. They can perform various tasks, such as towing, assistance at sea, and search and rescue. In other words, they have many tasks without which the navy cannot operate," said Pletenczuk. Moreover, according to the spokesman, large landing ships remain in Crimea.

"There are still five of them there, but there is one thing wrong with them - they (the Russians) cannot repair them. By the way, one of these ships is the Ukrainian Konstantin Olshansky, which they decided to rebuild instead of the destroyed Minsk," said Pletenczuk. He explained that Olshansky and Minsk are the same project (775), and the Ukrainian ship, which the occupiers looted for nine years, they decided to restore instead of their own ship.

Konstantin Olshansky is a large landing ship of the 775/I project, built in 1985 at the Northern Shipyard in Gdansk. Initially, it served in the USSR Navy's Black Sea Fleet and later Russia under the designation BDK-56 and the name Konstantin Olshansky. It was then transferred to Ukraine. In 2014, the ship was seized by the Russians.

The overall length is 112 metres, the width is 15 metres, and the maximum draft is 4 metres. The standard displacement is 3,196 tonnes, while the full displacement is 4,850 tonnes. The designers used two diesel engines with a power of 25,700 HP, allowing a speed of up to 32 km/h (the maximum range is estimated at 1,111 km at a speed of 22 km/h).

Project 775/II envisaged equipping the ships with artillery, consisting of four universal 57-mm guns. They were arranged in two turrets, with two guns in each, designated as AK-725. These turrets were strategically placed - one at the front and the other at the back of the ship, on either side of the superstructure. They were controlled by the Bars artillery radar, enabling precise fire control. These ships had a stock of 2,200 shells of 57-mm calibre for these guns.

Additionally, the 775/II project ships were equipped with self-defence systems. These systems included two quadruple very short-range anti-aircraft missile launchers, designated as Strela-3. These missiles were infrared-guided, increasing their effectiveness. There were 32 such missiles on board the ship.

Konstantin Olshansky was one of the late-built ships, meaning it was equipped with additional armament. In this case, they were two twenty-barrelled rocket launcher systems of 122-mm calibre, designated Grad-M. Each of these launchers could hold 160 rockets, giving a total stock of 320 rockets. The launchers were intended to support the landing.