Buh bye:
The prolonged low oil prices are doing major damage to the Russian Navy. Less oil income on top of the damage done by economic sanctions because of the Ukraine invasion, plus the additional production costs caused by the loss of Ukrainian defense industry suppliers has forced Russia to make a number of changes that have not been mentioned in navy press releases. Forced to make major cuts in defense spending and do so in a way that does the least damage ended up hitting naval ship building particularly hard. Only one of these cuts made the news, and was because the only aircraft carrier, the Kuznetsov (built in 1990), was undergoing one last refurbishment in a floating drydock. But a shipyard worker accidentally caused the drydock to sink with the Kuznetsov in it.
The lingering death of the once-powerful Soviet fleet continues. Lower oil prices, the loss of Ukrainian components (because Russia invaded Ukraine), and sanctions have taken a toll on Russia's fleet, on top of the loss of shipbuilding skills following the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it should finally be complete in the 2020s as things stand.
Heck, the Kuznetsov Incident should be looked at by Russians as a freaking gift from God.
Russia will have smaller surface vessels with anti-ship capabilities (Russia can still build corvettes and offshore patrol vessels, and it seems like the OPVs have taken the LCS concept of adapting the ships with modules that can be added or removed as needed and make it work), shorter-ranged amphibious lift assets, and then the key weapons of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and the attack submarines to guard the bastions the SSBNs patrol in near Russia to maintain a sea-based nuclear deterrent.
Although Russia's sea-based nuclear force seems to have ground to a halt--for now, anyway--at the levels of the French and British.
Which is as it should be if the Russians had any sense given their shrinking population, stressed defense budget, and large land border--which includes China which is a growing threat with claims on Russian territory.
Which is one reason I haven't worried about a Russian naval base in Syria. The way things are going, Russia will need a naval base in Syria to have any ships at all in the Mediterranean Sea because they will only have short-legged corvettes at best as the core of their surface fleet. And hunting down those ships will just give the NATO Greek, Italian, and French navies something to do.
Unless China collapses, Russia can't match that threat while still bizarrely fixated on the notion that NATO is a military threat to Holy Mother Russia. Until Russia reduces their three traditional sources of weakness--including a blue water fleet--Russia will be unable to match the Chinese ground threat to the Russian Far East without nuking the Chinese.
And do the Russians really want to rely on their nukes working? (Heck, for different reasons I worry about ours.)
