Oleksii Neizhpapa, the commander of the Ukrainian Navy, recently asserted in an interview with Sky News that the war's outcome could have been drastically different if Ukraine had been allowed to use Western weapons to target locations inside Russia.
According to Neizhpapa, this restriction on the use of Western-supplied arms has significantly impacted the trajectory of the conflict.
In the interview published on January 27, Vice Admiral Neizhpapa emphasized that Ukraine could have expedited the victory in the war if it had the permission to strike Russian targets with Western arms.
"We need to have the necessary capabilities to ensure that Russia forever abandons even the thought of looking towards Ukraine, including at sea," Neizhpapa stated, as reported by Sky News.
Throughout the extensive war, Ukraine has regularly targeted the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. The most notable strike was the sinking of Russia's Moskva missile cruiser, valued at $750 million, in April 2022.
In September 2023, the Russian Black Sea Fleet, based in the occupied Crimea, suffered significant setbacks, including strikes on a command post on September 20 and its central headquarters on September 22. Ukraine claimed that these latter strikes killed 34 Russian officers, including the fleet commander, and wounded 105 soldiers.
These attacks have "almost certainly caused severe damage" to the fleet, as reported by the British Ministry of Defence on September 26. Consequently, the fleet's capacity to conduct broader regional security patrols and enforce the de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports has likely been reduced.
Sky News reported that the September 22 attack was conducted using long-range Storm Shadow missiles supplied by the United Kingdom. Since the beginning of the extensive war, the Ukrainian General Staff has reported the destruction of 23 Russian ships and vessels.
