In response, Russia has carried out drone strikes on commercial shipping heading for Ukrainian ports. All this violence against foreign cargo ships, Russian tankers, and others in the Black Sea has caused maritime insurance rates to increase by two percent. Those rates will climb higher if the attacks continue.
It was only two years ago that the Russian Black Sea Fleet was largely destroyed by Ukrainian airborne and naval drones, as well as land-based anti-ship missiles. About a third of Russian ships survived, and they took refuge 488 kilometers away in Black Sea ports on the east coast. The Black Sea Fleet remained there until Ukrainian drones came for all Russian shipping in the area. Other problems remained in repairing damaged ships.
Since the 1990s, Russia has pursued military modernization, recognizing the need to address rapidly aging equipment. In many cases, these purchases were essential because new equipment and weapons purchases stopped in the 1990s, with a few exceptions such as ballistic missiles. As a result, most armed forces still used Cold War-era weapons and equipment manufactured in the 1970s and 80s. Fortunately, even older 1950s- and 60s-era equipment was not discarded after the armed forces shrank by 80 percent in the 1990s. Since Russian defense industries were never world-class, the Russian military was usually stuck with Cold War-era equipment that was not competitive with the newer generations of weapons and accessories that Western forces were receiving.
By the end of the 1990s, it was believed that at least a third of the Cold War-era equipment would be replaced. In some categories, especially those requiring new technology, over 80 percent of the older equipment needed replacements. The government told the military about these plans, and when they didn’t deliver, morale suffered. This happened quickly in the Navy because officers and sailors had been told that money would be available to maintain more ships, allowing them to spend more time at sea. It turned out that existing ships couldn’t handle heavy use and workload because corruption crippled repair efforts. That meant they needed either more new ships or expensive and extensive refurbishments of existing warships. After the 1990s, the air force resumed long-range air patrols over areas off the Russian coast, which had not seen Russian Navy or Air Force activity since the 1980s. From 1991 until recently, Russian warships spent most of their time tied up at dock, meaning an entire generation of sailors lacked at-sea experience.
The big problem so far is that the new equipment we have received is unimpressive. The troops can go online to find videos and technical specifications for many contemporary Western ships and equipment. The Russian equivalents rarely look good in comparison. But at least they aren’t stuck with aging Cold War-era equipment that rarely works.
The Russian armed forces have already come to grips with the fact that they will never return to the glory days of the Soviet Union, which dissolved in 1991. The army was called the Red Army back then, and the mighty Soviet naval force was known as the Red Fleet. During the Cold War, the armed forces had five times as many troops, over five million of them. Before 1991, the military received 10-20 percent of the national GDP, estimated at about $2 trillion. No one knows the exact amount, as the communists were not big fans of accountants or accurate financial reporting. Today, Russia tries to follow Western European rules on military spending, with no more than 3-4 percent of GDP going to the military. With a $2.7 trillion economy that continues to grow, generals and admirals can expect much more cash. But most of this money went to replace Cold War-era weapons, which were considered outdated and of limited usefulness in the 21st century. At that point, the war in Ukraine and the widespread use of air, land, and naval drones emerged to change everything.
James F Dunnigan