You’re right, it’s not, but it’s what the Russians have. Keep in mind that the Black Sea is basically an oversized brackish lake, but is really important to the Russians because it has warm water ports. Russians love warm water ports. They also can get things into the Mediterranean from there, but they’re bottle necked at either Gibraltar or Suez for getting out into the world’s oceans.
Just looking at what they have in the Black Sea, they have no ships over 10k tons displacement since the Moskva sank. There’s 5 ships around 5k tons, then 12 missile corvettes of 500 to 800 tons (one of which is the Askold mentioned in OP, and it was at the higher end of that range). The rest of the combat ships are things like submarines, landing craft, anti-submarine patrol, and a few others that aren’t really relevant against Ukraine.
Considering what’s left there, this is big, if not major. It was the biggest of their missile boats, and limits how many cruise missiles Russia can lob into Ukraine on any given day.
I’m not sure a corvette has ever counted as “major” warship.
I think in the context of the Black Sea fleet it’s considered major. They cannot replace them so every ship counts especially missile carrying ones.
You’re right, it’s not, but it’s what the Russians have. Keep in mind that the Black Sea is basically an oversized brackish lake, but is really important to the Russians because it has warm water ports. Russians love warm water ports. They also can get things into the Mediterranean from there, but they’re bottle necked at either Gibraltar or Suez for getting out into the world’s oceans.
Just looking at what they have in the Black Sea, they have no ships over 10k tons displacement since the Moskva sank. There’s 5 ships around 5k tons, then 12 missile corvettes of 500 to 800 tons (one of which is the Askold mentioned in OP, and it was at the higher end of that range). The rest of the combat ships are things like submarines, landing craft, anti-submarine patrol, and a few others that aren’t really relevant against Ukraine.
Considering what’s left there, this is big, if not major. It was the biggest of their missile boats, and limits how many cruise missiles Russia can lob into Ukraine on any given day.