The Black Sea Fleet () is the fleet of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Mediterranean Sea. The Black Sea Fleet, along with other Russian ground and air forces on the Crimean Peninsula, are subordinate to the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. The fleet traces its history to its founding by Prince Potemkin on 13 May 1783 as part of the Imperial Russian Navy. The Russian SFSR inherited the fleet in 1918; with the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, it became part of the Soviet Navy. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Black Sea Fleet was partitioned between the Russian Federation and Ukraine in 1997, with Russia receiving title to 82% of the vessels.
The Black Sea Fleet has its official primary headquarters and facilities at the Sevastopol Naval Base, Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The rest of the fleet's facilities are based in locations on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, including Krasnodar Krai, Rostov Oblast and Crimea.
The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War led to major operations and losses due to Ukrainian missiles and unmanned surface vehicles including the flagship Moskva and several landing vessels. Additionally, there was a 2023 Ukrainian missile strike against the Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol itself. After another attack on 24 March 2024, a Ukraine spokesperson said that they had disabled or damaged one third of the fleet during the war. In June 2024, Ukraine claimed it was now highly likely that they had destroyed all of the Black Sea Fleet's missile carrier capability based in Crimea. By early 2026, it was reported that, despite no longer having a navy, Ukraine's surface, sub-surface and aerial drone capabilities had effectively driven the Russian fleet from open waters, forcing it to seek shelter in ports on the eastern Black Sea that themselves were no longer fully secure.
History
Imperial Russian Navy
Origins During the reign of Peter the Great, Russia attempted to expand to the Black Sea region and Peter established a naval base on the Sea of Azov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1695-96. However, these gains at the expense of the Turks were made vulnerable during the Great Northern War (1700-1721) with Sweden. In the subsequent Russo-Turkish War of 1710 to 1713, Peter was compelled to surrender what he had gained before. The resurgence of Russia's position in the south advanced marginally as a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1735 to 1739, and then accelerated markedly during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796). Catherine's Greek Project envisaged the ultimate partition of the Ottoman Empire between Russia and the Habsburg Empire and the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople.
Starting with the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), Russia and the Ottoman Empire fought seven more wars up to the First World War (1914-1918). These conflicts encompassed which power would dominate the Black Sea region.
Formation of the fleet and operations in the late 18th/early 19th centuries
The Black Sea Fleet is considered to have been founded by Prince Potemkin on 13 May 1783, together with its principal base, the city of Sevastopol. Formerly commanded by admirals such as Dmitry Senyavin and Pavel Nakhimov, it is a fleet of great historical and political importance for Russia. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 Russian control over Crimea was confirmed and Russian naval forces under the command of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov defeated the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Kerch Strait in 1790, preventing the Turks from landing a force in Crimea; while Ushakov's victory at Tendra allowed the Russians to begin the siege of Izmail, a potent Ottoman stronghold by the Black Sea, which was twice besieged without effect.
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the Black Sea Fleet was initially deployed under the command of Admiral Ushakov, in conjunction with the Turks, against French forces during the Siege of Corfu. The victory led to the establishment of the Septinsular Republic with the island of Corfu then serving as a base for Russian naval units in the Mediterranean operating against the French.
Turkey, encouraged by the French, went to war with Russia in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812. The Russian fleet (deploying from the Baltic, but joining some vessels of the Black Sea Fleet already in the Mediterranean prior to the outbreak of war) under the command of Admiral Dmitry Senyavin played an instrumental role in this conflict securing victories at both the Battle of the Dardanelles (1807) and the Battle of Athos. After the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the Russians, together with the British and French, intervened in the Greek War of Independence defeating the Turkish fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 and helping to secure Greek independence (though once again, the Russian fleet was compelled to deploy from the Baltic). Turkish closure of the Dardanelles Straits then sparked a renewed Russo-Turkish conflict from 1828 to 1829 which led to the Russians gaining further territory along the eastern Black Sea.
The restriction imposed on the Black Sea Fleet by Turkish control of the Straits was influential in motivating periodic Russian attempts to secure control of the passage, which became a recurrent theme in Russian policy. From 1841 onward, the Russian fleet was formally confined to the Black Sea by the London Straits Convention.
Crimean War
In 1853, the Black Sea Fleet destroyed Turkish naval forces at the Battle of Sinop after the Turks had declared war on Russia. Nevertheless, during the ensuing Crimean War, the Russians were placed on the defensive and the allies were able to land their forces in Crimea and, ultimately, capture Sevastopol.
As a result of the Crimean War, the 1856 Treaty of Paris prohibited Russian naval units and fortifications on the Black Sea and neutralized the Black Sea.
1877 conflict with Turkey In 1870 Russia had repudiated the limitations imposed on its navy in the Treaty of Paris. However, when the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 began, Russian naval forces in the region remained weak. While the fleet possessed a number of ironclads, their seaworthiness was poor and, together with the employment of mines, they were used largely for defence against a more powerful Turkish fleet. According to analysis by Alfred Brainard, during "The lack of an effective Russian navy on the Black Sea dominated the Russian strategy in the Balkans throughout the war". In the aftermath of the conflict, Russia moved to reconstitute its naval strength and fortifications in the Black Sea so as to avoid facing similar vulnerability in the future.
Despite having emerged victorious in the war with Turkey, through the 1878 Treaty of Berlin the other Great Powers limited the scope of Russia's victory. Notably, the Treaty reaffirmed that warships could not pass through the Turkish Straits in peacetime thereby effectively confining Russia's Black Sea Fleet to that body of water.
1905 revolution The Black Sea Fleet would play an instrumental political role in the 1905 Russian Revolution with the crew of the battleship revolting in 1905 soon after the Navy's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. The revolt acquired a symbolic character in the lead up to the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and after, as portrayed in the 1925 film by Sergei Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin. Lenin referred to the Potemkin uprising as “the dress rehearsal” for the 1917 Revolution.
World War I and Russian Civil War
Turkey entered the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914 with a major naval attack against Russia's Black Sea ports. Vessels of the Ottoman Navy were accompanied by the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser , ships of the Imperial German Navy that had been caught in the Mediterranean at the outbreak of war in August, but had taken refuge in Turkey. These ships had now been integrated into the Ottoman Navy, albeit with their German crews still on board. The plan for the surprise attack on Russia had been formulated by Turkish War Minister Enver Pasha together with the commander of the two German ships, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, and with the full knowledge of the German government.
While in the initial stages of the war, the Ottomans had the advantage due to the presence of the Goeben in Turkish waters, once two modern Russian dreadnoughts ( and ) entered service with the Black Sea Fleet in 1915, the Russians gained the upper hand. The two sides would continue to trade surface raids, while German submarines of the Constantinople Flotilla and Turkish light forces raided and harassed Russian shipping.
As part of allied war aims, in 1915 Britain and France agreed that at the conclusion of the war the Turkish Straits would be placed under Russian control. These objectives were, however, not be realized once the Bolsheviks withdrew Russia from the war and were compelled to make a separate peace with the Central Powers in 1918.
The Russian loss of the dreadnought Imperatritsa Maria in late 1916 constituted a serious blow to the Black Sea Fleet, while Romania's entry into the war in the same year had shifted the focus of the Fleet from supporting Russian operations in the eastern Black Sea to assisting in the effort of countering German and Austrian forces as they advanced on the western side of the Sea. Then, with the onset of the Russian Revolutions in 1917, the cohesion and effectiveness of the Black Sea Fleet began to collapse. The Treaty of Brest Litovsk brought an end to hostilities between the Central Powers and Russia in March 1918 with harsh terms for Russia.
In 1918, some elements of the fleet were interned by the Central Powers as a result of their advance into South Russia. In the April Crimea operation, the goal of both Ukrainians and Germans was to get control over the Black Sea Fleet, anchored in Sevastopol. Former Chief of Staff Mikhail Sablin raised the colours of the Ukrainian National Republic on 29 April 1918, and moved a portion of the Ukrainian fleet (two battleships and fourteen destroyers) to Novorossiysk in order to save it from capture by the Germans.
Pursuant to the official acquiesence of Bolshevik authorities to the German demand that the fleet return to its base in Sevastopol, Soviet authorities nevertheless secretly ordered the fleet to scuttle its ships. However, the ultimate fate of each ship was effectively decided by their crews. As a result, while one battleship, one cruiser and six destroyers reportedly returned to Sevastopol, the rest were scuttled by their crews.
In 1919, following the collapse of the Central Powers' occupation in Western Russia, the Red Fleet of Ukraine was established out of certain remnants of the Russian Imperial Fleet. However, subsequently these elements were either scuttled or captured by the Western Allies. During the ensuing Russian Civil War, the chaotic political and strategic situation in southern Russia permitted the intervening Western allies to occupy Odessa, Sevastopol and other centres with relative ease.
Most of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet became part of the "Russian Squadron" of Wrangel's armed forces. Following the defeat of anti-Bolshevik forces and the evacuation of Crimea by White forces in 1920, the fleet itself sailed to Constantinople together with 126 ships of all types, carrying 150,000 refugees. Out of the former ships of the Black Sea Fleet, some passed to the French Navy while others were sold as scrap.
Soviet Navy