BLACK SEA FLEET
Yet it did mean Russia's Black Sea fleet lost its primary air defence platform, according to Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute think tank. After the Moskva sunk, the fleet "could no longer safely operate off Ukraine's coast," he told Newsweek. ...Crimea is "a vital power projection platform" on which the Black Sea fleet depends, Kaushal said, which, unlike Novorossiysk, "can be reliably used all year round."
