The Russian Federation is close to finish the construction of a permanent navy base in Abkhazia, a breakaway region in eastern Georgia it controls since the 1992 Abkhaz-Georgian war. The base is located – and will replace – a small harbor serving as a coal terminal and a Federal Security Service (FSB) Coast Guard outpost in Ochamchire, and is supposed to host a part of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

While Moscow has not publicized its plans for the Abkhaz base, satellite imagery analyzed by Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group dealing with fact-checking and open-source intelligence, suggests that construction activity has accelerated since early 2024, with many buildings and infrastructure already in place.

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The decision to move a part of the Black Sea fleet away from annexed Crimea (Sevastopol) to Novorossiysk, a major naval base on the Russian Black Sea coast - and then out of Novorossiysk somewhere farther – is the result of numerous successful missile and drone attacks by the Ukrainian army.

Until now, Ukraine – which has no navy in the Black Sea – has destroyed Russian 26 ships and damaged 7 more since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to Oryxspioenkop, a project documenting the losses in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The latest sinking is a Kilo-class attack submarine that was struck by a missile in the Sevastopol port last week.

Now that Kyiv has received more advanced Western weapons, with a longer range of action, the threat on Russian ships has increased exponentially.

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