By Olha Hembik | 2026-05-05

Ukraine's navy was divided between Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s. Russia took it again when it annexed Crimea in 2014. So when full-scale war began in 2022, Ukraine had almost nothing left to fight with at sea.

What it built instead has reshaped naval warfare.

Using unmanned surface and underwater vessels, aerial drones, electronic intelligence (ELINT) and radar technologies, Ukraine destroyed or damaged at least 25 Russian naval vessels, drove the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol and cracked open its own commercial sea lanes in the process. Now Kyiv is setting its sights further.

"One of the goals we have set for 2026–2027 is to secure control over the maximum possible area of the Black Sea," Serhii Beskrestnov, advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, said on Facebook. Five years ago, he acknowledged, such a claim from a country without a large navy "would have been laughable." He no longer thinks so.

The shot that opened the sea

The turning point came on April 13, 2022, when Ukraine struck and sank the Moskva -- Russia's guided-missile cruiser, Black Sea Fleet flagship, and veteran of operations in Georgia and Syria. Two Neptune anti-ship missiles caused catastrophic damage. The ship sank the following day with up to 500 sailors aboard, according to various reports.

The military significance was immediate. So was the economic one.

"Taking out the cruiser and the ensuing liberation of Zmiinyi Island wasn't just symbolic -- it was highly practical. It laid the groundwork for securing the Black Sea's northwestern coastline," said Yaroslav Mazurkevych, who worked Ukraine's Danube-to-European Union (EU) grain corridor during 2022–2023.

Within a month of the Moskva's sinking, Mazurkevych was moving grain out of Danube ports. Later came shipments from Odesa and eventually inbound cargo: glass, rolled metal and other goods. None of it, he said, would have been possible without that operation.

The days of Russian ships freely entering the territorial waters of Bulgaria and Romania are gone, said Oleksandr Antoniuk, a political consultant and Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) serviceman.

"Recall how the Russians tried to attack Odesa and seized Zmiinyi Island. To maintain logistics in our own waters, we were forced to sign 'grain deals.' Today, no one even remembers them," Antoniuk told Kontur.

Ukraine's know-how, Russia's problem

Ukraine has since systematized what Antoniuk calls its own "know-how" -- unmanned surface vessels and underwater drones that have forced the Russian fleet into survival mode. According to Dmytro Pletenchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Navy, the fleet now deploys once or twice a month to fire its salvos, then returns to Novorossiysk.

Russia is paying attention. "The Russians are learning from us; that is a fact. They are trying to copy our technological and tactical solutions -- that is also a fact," Pletenchuk said.

Ukraine is factoring that into its planning.

"However, the gap is noticeable because naval drones continue to advance; they keep evolving," he said.

The technology is drawing wider interest.

Artificial intelligence (AI) expert Nikita Gladkikh told Kontur the Russo-Ukrainian war has accelerated military AI development by serving as a testing ground unlike any other.

"Algorithms will determine the effectiveness and outcome of military operations. The future of military AI is to become the invisible command center and 'nervous system' of the army," he said.

The experience Ukraine has accumulated under real combat conditions, Gladkikh believes, will shape international defense investment for years.

Antoniuk sees an opening for NATO. Individual member states, he argues, could build on Ukraine's naval experience to form the basis for new allied security arrangements among Black Sea states, turning a wartime improvisation into a durable strategic framework.

"Our enemy will be afraid to deploy a single ship into the open sea from its ports," Beskrestnov said. Given the last three years, that is no longer an empty boast.