EXPOSED: Putin lost at sea as Ukraine targets Russia’s weak spot | Battle Plans

Brovdi has now shut down the Sea of Azov.Vladimir Putin thought he could use the Black Sea as his own private launch pad to terrorise Ukraine.He was wrong.Ukraine has no major navy, yet it's pulling off a total maritime lockdown.Ukraine isn't just hunting warships anymore, they're hunting the Kremlin's cash card.As Ukrainian Defence Minister Mikhail Fedorov confirms that he is stepping down and Russia's shadow fleet goes up in flames, there are critical updates from the front lines.

I'm Philip Ingram, and this is Battle Plans Exposed.A political upheaval has rocked Ukraine, but don't let the noise fool you.The reality on the front lines remains exactly the same.Vladimir Putin wants you to believe his forces are sweeping through the east, but the key fortress of Kostya Nevka, what we're calling the Kupyansk V2, remains firmly locked in the grey zone.Independent military analysts, including the Blackbird Group, report that Russia is struggling to sustain any offensive momentum.June actually marked the net negative month for Russian territorial holdings in Ukraine.

And while the land war grinds on, Ukraine has shut down the Sea of Azov through Robert Brovdi's operation Molocheka, and a total Black Sea lockdown is underway.Before we map out the strategic nightmare Ukraine is building for Putin's navy, let's look at what's been happening on the front line.The traditional attack helicopter, once the undisputed king of the skies, is facing an existential crisis.What you're seeing here is a Ukrainian FPV drone operated by the RAGOG unit of the Unmanned Systems Forces.They're stalking, chasing and hunting the Russian Mi -28 attack helicopter just over the border in the Belgorod region of Ukraine.Russia.

Watch how the operator lines up the run.The chopper is moving fast, but the drone pilot matches its trajectory.It looks like the main rotor may have taken out the drone before it detonated, because if you want to attack the helicopter properly, attack the tail rotor.It will then go into an uncontrollable spin.But actually, even if the main rotor had hit it, the debris from the drone will have caused this aircraft significant damage.Whether it's caused it enough for it to crash or whether the crew managed to recover it and survive, we don't know.

But you can guarantee that a drone costing only a few thousand dollars has severely damaged, if not destroyed, a helicopter costing millions.So now we see a little bit of Russian entertainment.This is the shocking moment a Russian army mobile fire group almost killed themselves.In a bid to target Ukrainian drones, these troops have brought an old Soviet weapon, the Yak -B 12 .7mm 4 -barreled rotary aircraft machine gun from 1973.They brought it back into service as a makeshift ground defence weapon.But watch what happens as they fire.

The weapon goes out of control, spinning round and round, shooting wildly.Miraculously, there were no casualties reported.Well, miraculously for the Russians who were doing the training, the Ukrainians would have been quite happy, I think, if there had been casualties.But the clip shows you the sheer desperation of Putin's war machine, relying on dangerous, outdated Soviet -era weapons that are more a threat to their own men than they are to the enemy.And this particular machine gun was for attack helicopters, not designed to be used ground -mounted like that.And the poor instructor, to try and stop it going around, grabbed hold of the barrel.

I've only touched a hot machine gun barrel once.You never do it twice.So what we're seeing here is front line footage from the border guards in the Hart Brigade operation.in the Slobozhansk direction.They detected what the troops call Zadoon drones.A Zadoon drone, named after the popular Russian slang term for the one who waits, is an ambush -style FPV loitering munition.

Instead of actively hunting, these drones land on trees or poles or on the ground near roads and wait in sleep mode until a target vehicle or personnel passes by.This drone and drone strike shows the relentless cat and mouse game being played out in the skies.It is a constant cycle of adaption and technological countermeasures.In reality, what we have here is just a series of smart mines.These FPV drones sitting in the ground waiting to be activated are like smart mines.What the Ukrainians are doing is mine clearance using their own UAVs.

Now this is interesting and confusing because what you're seeing here is a Russian Shahad 136 kamikaze drone flying incredibly low over the Odessa region.But instead of carrying a warhead to blow something up, watch what happens as it passes overhead.It releases a massive cloud of white sheets.These are reported to be either propaganda leaflets aimed at demoralising local population, or what are also known as dipole reflectors, or in the Second World War terminology, window, designed to scramble and confuse Ukrainian air defence radars.It is a stark reminder that this conflict is not just being fought with high explosives, but on a psychological level too.

The Kremlin is using these loud, cheap terror weapons to mess with civilian minds and disrupt military systems all at once.But we do know that not every Shahad kamikaze drone has got a warhead.Many of them are put in to try and draw attack from Ukrainian air defence systems so that expensive missiles are expended in shooting something down that has got no explosive value.in it whatsoever.So this, again, could have been that window, those dipole reflectors trying to cause a Ukrainian air defence system to lock onto it and to fire expensive and ideally patriot missiles at it, because that would be a very cost -effective way of trying to disrupt Ukrainian air defence.It's innovation, and we're seeing constant innovation across the front lines.

So dipole reflectors or window.invented during the Second World War.And they're strips of aluminium that are cut to the length that will reflect a similar sort of signal back when a radar hits it to the target that they're looking for.It can be used in two ways.One, to pretend it's a target and give that sort of radar signature.Or the other, in mass volumes, and we haven't quite seen the mass volume here, to put so many reflections back that it totally confuses any search radar that there is out there, allowing missiles or other aircraft to sneak in behind it, like a smoke screen, but an electronic smoke screen.

And finally, what you're seeing here is the absolute carnage in the Azov Sea.Over just a 24 -hour period, Ukrainian forces have hit another 11 Russian vessels.And we're talking five oil tankers, an LNG transport, cargo ships, and tugboats.That brings the total to a staggering 147 Russian ships struck in only 10 days in the seas Azov and the Black Sea.But watch the water around them.There's not a single Russian military escort in sight to protect this fleet.

The Kremlin's Black Sea fleet has been so thoroughly battered and pushed back that they're leaving their vital commercial and logistics supply lines completely exposed to Ukrainian sea drones.It's a total collapse of Russian naval dominance in the region.We've all seen how drones change the dynamics in the battlefield on the ground.in Ukraine.But there's another critical front where the calculus is shifting.This front is, as we've reported on beforehand, in the Black Sea.

But the Black Sea, connected to the Sea of Azov, where we've just shown pictures of Russian logistic ships being attacked, is linked out into the Mediterranean through the Bosporus, controlled by Turkey and then out to the rest of the world through Gibraltar and the Atlantic and elsewhere.Why is it vital?It's critical because Ukraine supplies the world about 10 % of its grain and cooking oil.

That was before the war.

Since the war started, Ukraine is still supplying a significant percentage of grain and cooking oil.But instead of using all of its ports on its southern coast, it is now restricted to Odessa.

The Russians control all of the others.

The Russian focus was trying to then export stolen Ukrainian grain and oil out through the Sea of Azov and out through the Black Sea, through the Bosporus, into the Mediterranean and to the rest of the world.However, their focus has changed.Since Ukraine has now started its campaign to isolate Crimea, then the Russians are having difficulty getting essential supplies in by land from the north across the Kirsch Strait in the south using either ferries, they've all been sunk, or the Kirsch Bridge, which has been damaged.So what they're trying to do is move logistics supplies into Crimea using ships in the Sea of Azov.They were being successful up until the last 10 days.And this is where the Ukrainian attacks on these ships have been significant.

And they're significant in that they are increasing the isolation of Crimea.where you now cannot get fuel.Food is becoming more difficult to get hold of.The Russians are having increasing difficulties getting military supplies in there, and therefore it can't be used as a secure base to launch attacks up into Ukraine.Ukraine is slowly but surely choking off what Putin sees as one of the jewels in his crown.

So critical to Vladimir Putin, but also critical to President Zelensky.He said the Russian war began with Crimea.

And it began in 2014 when the Russians carried out a bloodless coup across Crimea and then pushed into further regions of southern Ukraine.And it is psychologically important both to the Ukrainians, and to the Russians.The Russians, it was the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.It was where Vladimir Putin went on his honeymoon.It's where Vladimir Putin and many of his oligarchs, those in his inner circle, have got huge properties and huge dachas.And that is why Putin sees that as part of Russia.

For Ukraine, it's always been part of Ukraine.And because of its importance to Vladimir Putin, and because of the Russians coming in here in 2014, President Zelensky sees it as a critical piece to put pressure on Vladimir Putin.And that is why he sees the war finishing with what he's doing in Ukraine.And that is why we're seeing so much effort put into that today.

So why is this important?And why is Vladimir Putin so concerned about getting control of this coast and everything else?

Part of it, I think, is because the Black Sea is effectively a NATO sea.And if Ukraine was ever allowed to join NATO, it would become even more of a NATO sea.Because we've got Turkey in the south.we've got Bulgaria, we've got Romania, Ukraine is not a NATO member but is now being supported by NATO.And the only way in and the only way out is through the Bosporus Strait, controlled by a NATO country, Turkey.

Vladimir Putin and his navy see this almost like the Baltic, where the Baltic is the NATO sea.

There's a tiny area that Russia has got access to, but it can only use the sea to transit out or transit round to Kaliningrad and then leave.

It's restricting Russia's freedom of operation across a large proportion of its area.That is partially why Vladimir Putin is justifying his war into Ukraine.Vladimir Putin thought he could use the Black Sea as his own private launch pad to terrorise Ukraine.He was wrong.Ukraine has no major navy, yet it's pulling off a total maritime lockdown.They're using a swarm of cheap, homemade drones to choke Russia's war machine, smash its shadow fleet and rewrite the rules of naval warfare.

Russia has been launching hundreds of Iranian -designed Shahad drones from occupied Crimea, sending them low over the water to hit vital ports like Odessa.If you try to stop them on land using traditional air defence, you're trapped in a losing game.A single Shahad costs Russia around £15 ,000 or between £15 ,000 and £38 ,000 depending on its warhead and its configuration.

Firing a Western Patriot missile to stop it costs over £3 million a shot.

Putin's entire strategy relies on exhausting Ukraine economically by forcing them to use scarce, multi -million pound missiles against cheap, mass -produced kamikaze drones.But Ukraine is turning the tables.They're taking the Maguro naval drones, the same crewless boats controlled by operators miles away that sank the Russian warship Moskova in the early days of the war, and putting interceptor drones right on the deck.Ukraine's 412th Brigade Nemesis is converging uncrewed surface vessels and interceptor drones.This is a robot -unrobot war.Watch this clip.

The Ukrainians launched a new sting interceptor drone right off the back of a crewless speedboat.It flies up, it tracks the Shahad and it blows it clean out of the sky.This is the first time in history a sea drone has launched an air defence drone to kill a target.By positioning these crewless boats right out in the waves, they can hunt the Shahads over the open sea, hundreds of kilometres before they ever reach the coast.Two unmanned machines meet over the water and a 1 ,700 pound Ukrainian drone obliterates a 38 ,000 pound Russian threat.The defence is suddenly cheaper than the attack.

Now, where are these drones, these sea drones going to be and where they're going to be launching their anti -drone drones from?They're not going to be out in the depths of the Black Sea.This is where Western intelligence is critical to the Ukrainians, because Western intelligence will say where the Shahad drones are being launched from, whether it be from Russia, occupied Ukraine, or a lot of them were from Crimea.And here we've seen the Ukrainians first and foremost protecting Odessa.But the sea drones that the Ukrainians are using will be only a few kilometres out to sea from Odessa because they have a range of probably 15 kilometres would be optimal.Theoretically it says 18 .5 or out to 25 kilometres for their anti -drone drones.

But 15 kilometres they can reach out.If at 15 kilometres they can hit the Shahad 136 drones coming in, there's plenty of sea for them to crash into before they get into Odessa.So we're not getting the debris crashing into a built -up area.And it gets worse for the Kremlin.Ukraine is already rolling out a next -generation, nine -metre -long naval vessel called the Katrin.This thing is essentially a floating robotic aircraft carrier.

It has a range of 1 ,600 kilometers, can stay at sea for three days, and carries up to 27 AI -guided interceptor drones in a single mission.Because Russia uses rivers as low -altitude corridors to sneak drones towards Kiev, the Katrin can sail right into those waterways and drop a wall of interceptors directly into the flight path.Then there's the Sangram 3000 coming online.While full specifications remain classified, this multi -role, unmanned naval combat system has been adopted by the Ukrainian Navy after sinking a Russian Izmir border guard ship.And it's not just sea -to -air robots.Take a look at this footage, executed by the operators of the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade.

It's another world first.

They've remotely piloted a maritime drone all the way across the Black Sea, carrying a ground -based combat robot armed with a machine gun.Watch how they land the craft directly on the occupied Kinburn Spit, the Kinburn Coast, this little area of what was occupied territory jutting out into the Black Sea.Drop the ramp and send the robot crawling straight behind Russian lines.By combining sea and land drones like this, Ukrainians can now insert fire support and scout hostile shores without putting a single soldier's life at risk.What it's also doing is it continuouslythe Russians, keeping them not knowing where they're going to get attacked from next.

The impact that that has on their defensive positions and their morale in particular is significant.

Now watch this next bit of footage.This is part of a massive coordinated blockade called Operation Moluchaka.Ukraine isn't just hunting warships anymore, they're hunting the Kremlin's cash cow.the shadow fleet of commercial tankers supplying fuel to the military in Crimea.Led by Major Robert Brovdy, the legendary drone commander known as Magyar, Ukraine's unmanned systems forces have just pulled off an astonishing 10 -day blitz.They targeted Russia's shadow fleet, the fleet Vladimir Putin uses to bypass international oil sanctions and to fund his war machine.

The scale of this campaign is staggering.Between the 6th of July and July the 16th, Ukrainian drone operators struck 147 vessels.

That includes 117 ships in the Sea of Azov and 30 more ships in the Black Sea.But here's the real tactical genius.

Ukraine is not trying to sink these ships.They do not want a massive oil spill polluting their waters.Instead, they're blinding them.They're slamming kamikaze drones directly into the bridges, the steering gear, and the communications arrays.As Magyar himself put it, the goal is to turn every single self -propelled vessel into a drifting barge, completely blind and deaf.

So, as we're recording this, there are changes happening in the political world in Ukraine.Fedorov, Ukraine's new Minister of Defence, has now just been forced out of office.Budanov, General Budanov, former head of the HUR,Ukraine's military intelligence, is now President Zelensky's Chief of Staff.And the man who's making all the decisions and what's going on is President Zelensky himself.Now, what is going on?

What has been happening here?Fedorov, a youngster.He has only been in post since January this year as the Minister for Defence.Before that, he was a Minister for Technical Innovation and the Deputy Deputy Prime Minister.A very young man that's come in.A bit of a disruptor.

A businessman before he got into politics.But it's all about tech.And what I think we're seeing here is this dynamic, forward -leaning, energetic individual coming in and butting up against the neolith that is a Ministry of Defence that has set in its ways, that has been forced to change in so many different ways, that has got old and bold generals that have got decades more experience in doing what they're doing than Fedof has.And this has caused a dynamic within the Ministry of Defence that President Zelensky has said, trying to get his Minister of Defence and the head of his armed forces General Sierski to sit down at the same table could only happen whenever he was refereeing.That is not a good position to be in.Someone has to go.

And I think President Zelensky has taken the decision that the man that is commanding the troops on the ground, his overall military commander, is the one that's staying, and the fall guy is fed off.That doesn't mean that he's done anything wrong.Actually,he's been very popular.What he's done is he has forced the development, the rapid development of drone technology, supporting small, innovative companies, rather than going to the large defence contractors that have been supplying for many, many years.And this is what, again, has probably caused some anxiety amongst the establishment.

We can never count Budanov as the establishment.Zelensky as president has to play the establishment and balance off the dynamism of his new youngsters trying to make change and trying to win this war with keeping stability in what's always been there.Very difficult decision for him.Let's hope that there isn't anything more behind Fedof's move because the last thing that Zelensky needs at the moment are any more scandals.So the four -year war is evolving, the way wars always evolve.And it's changing the way wars are fought.

Look at the Americans.They're watching this very closely.In the Middle East, US military has burned through $4 million Patriot missiles to stop cheap drones.Ukraine is proving you can build a wall of air defence over the sea for a fraction of the cost.Putin wanted a blockade, a blockade of Ukraine across the Black Sea.Instead, he's got a lockdown.

Crimea and the Russian Black Sea fleet are locked down by the Ukrainians.I'm Philip Ingram.Thank you for watching.If you like what you've seen, please hit like, please subscribe, and please pass it on to your friends.But I'm looking forward to seeing you again next week.Goodbye.