Train every day to counter drone attacks, Russian defence minister tells navy

Sergei Shoigu orders high-calibre machine guns to be installed on warships to destroy approaching enemy

Russia’s defence minister has ordered commanders of the Black Sea Fleet to train “day and night” to fend off Ukrainian drone attacks that have sunk more than a dozen warships.
On a trip to the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in occupied Crimea, Sergei Shoigu admonished his naval officers for being beaten back by Ukraine’s far smaller navy and embarrassing the Kremlin.
“There must be training for personnel every day. Training on how to repel attacks from the air and by uncrewed boats,” he said in a video of the visit released by the Russian ministry of defence.
The ministry of defence also said that Mr Shoigu ordered high-calibre machine guns to be installed on warships to destroy approaching enemy drones.
Vladimir Putin regularly dispatches Mr Shoigu to visit front-line units with messages and threats if he feels commanders are underperforming.
In the Russian ministry of defence video, Mr Shoigu sat next to Admiral Alexander Moiseev, the new overall commander of the Russian navy, as he listened to a briefing from Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk.
He also later toured the construction site of a new military hospital in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has suffered several humiliating blows during the war with Ukraine, including losing its flagship, the Moskva, and control of the strategically important Snake Island.
According to Novaya Gazeta, an independent-minded Russian newspaper, Ukrainian drone and missile attacks have destroyed 15 Black Sea Fleet warships and submarines, mainly when they were docked at ports in Crimea.
This has angered Putin, who reorganised his top naval command this year.
He promoted Admiral Moiseev to overall commander of the Russian navy this month. Vice Admiral Pinchuk was promoted to lead the Black Sea Fleet last month, the fleet’s third commander since the start of the war in February 2022.
Last year, Russia’s ministry of defence admitted that it had started to build a new base for its Black Sea Fleet in a rebel region of Georgia that lies 380 miles from Ukraine, a retreat that Western analysts described as a humiliation for the Kremlin’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet.