The Russian Black Sea Fleet’s “humiliating” retreat from Crimea has exposed the emptiness of the country’s red lines, according to a military observer.
Peter Dickinson, the editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert online publication and chief editor of Business Ukraine Magazine, made the analysis in an Atlantic Council blog post on Tuesday.
“The Russian Navy’s readiness to retreat from its supposedly sacred home ports in Crimea has made a mockery of Moscow’s so-called red lines and exposed the emptiness of Putin’s nuclear threats,” he said.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has used its Sevastopol Naval Base as the primary headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet.
But Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in a Facebook post earlier this week that Russia had pulled its last Black Sea Fleet warship out of Crimea.
“Remember this day,” he wrote.
The Naval Forces of the Armed Forces …