The Novorossiysk Trap: How Two Black Sea Fleet Frigates Stopped Being Caliber Carriers

In the autumn of 2023 Russia's Black Sea Fleet left Sevastopol because cruise missiles could reach it there. Novorossiysk was presented as a safe rear area: more than 300 km from the front line, a fortified naval harbour, dense air defences. In the first half of 2026 that harbour took four strikes. A satellite image from 19 August shows both Project 11356R frigates at the same pier — with burn marks around the Caliber launchers. This is no longer "a damaged ship." It is the loss of the very function these ships were built for.

The moveWhy the fleet went to Novorossiysk, and what it changed

By the autumn of 2023 Sevastopol had stopped being a base. On 13 September Storm Shadow cruise missiles hit the Sevmorzavod yard — the landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-na-Donu burned out along with the dock; nine days later the next strike fell on Black Sea Fleet headquarters. By the first days of October satellite imagery showed the main surface missile carriers sitting in Novorossiysk[1].

The logic of the move was simple: put the ships beyond reach. Novorossiysk offers over 300 km of separation from the front line, a naval base of its own in the Geoport area, and cover from coastal air defences. The problem is that the geography works against that calculation. Sevastopol Bay is narrow, with a throat that can be closed off with booms. Tsemes Bay is wider, and both the naval harbour and the berths of the Sheskharis oil terminal sit inside the envelope of air- and sea-launched weapons.

After Admiral Grigorovich left the Black Sea, Novorossiysk was left with a pair of Project 11356R frigates — Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov. They are two of the few Black Sea Fleet surface combatants able to fire Calibers from an eight-cell universal vertical launcher. This piece is about what was done to them in Novorossiysk.

ChronicleFour strikes in half a year

On the night of 2 March 2026 a mass raid worked over Novorossiysk — up to two hundred drones combined with missile weapons. Admiral Essen took a hit on its midships superstructure; the fire aboard burned for roughly eighteen hours[2].

Satellite analysis of the damage showed that what burned was precisely the section where the ship's self-defence and detection systems are concentrated. The casualties were the PK-10 decoy launchers, the TK-25 electronic warfare suite, the Fregat-M2M search radar and the MR-90 Orekh illumination posts. Without the last of these the Shtil-1 surface-to-air system cannot guide its missiles[3]. On 6 March the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine officially confirmed damage to both frigates[4].

On the night of 6 April strike drones of the 1st Separate Centre of the Unmanned Systems Forces worked the Sheskharis oil terminal with support from deep-strike units. The ships in the harbour came under the same attack.

According to CyberBoroshno's satellite analysis, Essen this time was hit in the bow section — in the area of the 100 mm A-190 gun mount, directly above the MGK-335M Platina hull-mounted sonar[3]. The ship was identified on the imagery by its distinctive white radomes; Makarov's are grey. Makarov itself registered arrivals around its pier and its vertical launchers — despite the ship firing its Shtil-1 surface-to-air system.

In late May the 1st Separate Centre of the Unmanned Systems Forces, commanded by Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, ran a two-day raid on Novorossiysk. This time Essen was not attacked from above: the drones came in on the ship's side, right at the waterline, despite fire from its air-defence weapons[5].

The operation on the night of 12 August was run jointly: the Active Operations Department and the Unmanned Systems Department of HUR (Defence Intelligence of Ukraine), the SBU, the Navy and the State Border Guard Service, in coordination with the General Staff. The weapons were Palianytsia jet-powered long-range drones, Neptune cruise missiles and uncrewed surface vessels[6].

The night's confirmed results were hits on four ships: both Project 11356R frigates, a Project 21631 Buyan-M small missile ship and a Project 22160 patrol ship of the Vasily Bykov type. Separately, a 30N6E radar belonging to an S-300 surface-to-air battery, the Grushovaya oil depot and the Sheskharis terminal were struck[6][7].

19.08What the high-resolution image showed

On 19 August 2026 an image of the Novorossiysk harbour appeared online at far better quality than anything before it. Both frigates are lying along opposite sides of the same pier, parallel, bows the same way — and both show burn marks across the forward half, where the Caliber launcher sits[8][9]. The damage, however, is of two different classes.

On Makarov the imagery reads as a penetrating hole directly in the mounting area of the eight-cell 3S14 universal vertical launcher. Missile rounds are not routinely kept aboard while in base, so there was no detonation — but the silo itself is wrecked. On the after superstructure, the radome of the Kentavr-NM1 protected satellite communications station has been destroyed, and the antenna post of the three-coordinate Pozitiv-M1.2 radar next to it damaged[9][10].

Essen's damage is of a different character: the deck around the missile silos is covered in soot from repeated fires, and the PK-10 decoy launchers and the TK-25 electronic warfare station are out of action. The ship is afloat and its main strike system is most likely intact — but its close-in defence and detection systems have degraded across four consecutive strikes[10].

3S14Why a breached silo means the loss of Calibers

The difference between "a damaged ship" and "a ship that no longer shoots" lies in how the launcher is built. The UKSK 3S14 is not a piece of deck furniture that can be swapped out alongside a quay. It is a module built into the hull. On Project 11356R frigates it sits in the bow section, between the 100 mm A-190 gun mount and the superstructure, sunk into the hull — exactly the length of a missile in its transport-launch canister.

The module's dimensions explain why this is not a job that can be done alongside a quay. According to the export brochure for the 3S-14E launcher, its height is 9,580 mm — nearly ten metres down into the hull — with a length of 3,760 mm, a width of 1,970 mm and a module mass of 14,000 kg for eight missile cells[11]. This is not something lifted out by a quayside crane.

The Black Sea Fleet's ship-repair base has historically been tied to Sevastopol — Sevmorzavod and the 13th Ship Repair Yard. That is precisely where the ships were pulled out of in 2023, and Sevmorzavod has itself been a target repeatedly since. Novorossiysk was built as a basing point, not a repair hub: facilities for dock work of this class there are severely limited. That is what the assessment "out of action for a long time" actually means — not that the ship is sinking, but that there is effectively nowhere to fix it.

WiderWho else is in the frame

The frigates took the headlines, but the consolidated imagery analysis published by Exilenova+ shows damage across the harbour far beyond those two positions. Besides Essen and Makarov, marks of damage were recorded on five more units, each with its own role in keeping the base running[8].

The layout separately marks the basing point of the 4th Submarine Brigade — the formation that operates the Project 636.3 Varshavyankas, the Black Sea's principal submerged Caliber carriers. No damage to the boats themselves is visible in the imagery, but the mere presence of that location in the layout shows the strike envelope covers the base as a whole rather than individual piers.

The response is visible from orbit. Over the summer of 2026 counter-drone cages appeared over the sails of the submarines at Novorossiysk, the boats themselves settled into the water on slackened moorings, and a boom closed the entrance to the inner harbour against drone boats.

20.08Geolocation: a Caliber leaves from inside the city harbour

A day after the damage imagery went round the internet, amateur night footage came out of Novorossiysk: a cruise missile launch filmed from a residential block[12].

The roofline of a distinctive apartment block in the frame, along with a lower reference point, was located on satellite imagery; intersecting the sightlines fixes the camera position at 44.7072, 37.7798, on the eastern shore of Tsemes Bay. The naval harbour lies opposite, across the water. That is where the bearing to the flare leads — not to the mouth of the bay, and not out to sea.

And the point of launch is the finding. The Russian missile-carrier group is firing from piers inside the city harbour, under cover of residential blocks, rather than moving out to firing positions at sea. The reason is plain: leaving the bay means meeting uncrewed surface vessels and anti-ship missiles. So is the price — the launch zone now coincides with the zone where those ships are being hit, and the housing of Novorossiysk sits immediately alongside both.

Bottom lineThree consequences for the Black Sea Fleet

A flagship without a strike function. Admiral Makarov became the Black Sea Fleet's de facto flagship after the cruiser Moskva went down in April 2022. A breached 3S14 launcher and a destroyed satellite communications station strip it of both roles at once: it neither launches Calibers nor coordinates the formation. Only a yard repair can restore that.

The relocation did not work. The move from Sevastopol was meant to put the ships beyond reach. The combined strikes of 2026 reach them alongside their piers at over 300 kilometres from the front line — and reach them systematically, four times in half a year. There is no further rear area to fall back to: the Black Sea is closed.

The carriers have become floating batteries. Ships built to operate at sea now fire from alongside, because putting to sea is more dangerous for them than staying put. That works for as long as the harbour works. The Black Sea Fleet's strike capability has been tied to a single point on the map — and that point is already within reach.