Sevastopol imagery 7 June 2022

Another imagery update of Sevastopol provided by Capella, this time dated 7 June 2022.

Not too many changes but there is one strange occurance.

Overall, most of the Russian navy ships remain the same. On the north side of the bay, a couple of civilian merchant vessels were collecting grain/wheat from the terminal. Project 02690 Floating crane SPK-54150 had been operational on the southern side but was back next to the grain terminal at the time of the collection.

The remaining ships are same as those in the 31 May 2022 update – except one Project 1239 Dergach class had departed on 5 June 2022.

On the south side in Pivdenna Bay, very little change. Project 02690 Floating crane SPK-46150 was present but had been operational – to then depart a few days later on 8 June 2022 (more on this later).

The submarine pen was open and one Kilo class SSK was no longer present. This was to be found in the maintenance bay 2 km northeast of Pivdenna, on the south side of Sevastopol Bay.

Even stranger was that, along with the Capella imagery here, others showed the Kilo balancing on the deck of a small floating crane. @GrangerE04117 on Twitter concluded it was Project 877V Alrosa – which I agree with.

The submarine there is the newly "resurrected" Alrosa. A one-off Kilo with a pumpjet propulsion.

Last image I have of Alrosa, they are just casually painting window frames and continuing do to repairs pic.twitter.com/YiOGJh9BwI

— Granger (@GrangerE04117) June 8, 2022

The remaining Kilo in Pivdenna Bay was confirmed later on by @Capt_Navy

🇷🇺#Russian #Navy The Southern Bay of Sevastopol on June 7, 2022. Photo source https://t.co/e7lfI7adny pic.twitter.com/PwHpbV833f

— Capt(N) (@Capt_Navy) June 8, 2022

Alrosa balancing on the deck of the floating crane in such a way is something I haven’t seen before. There are floating docks available, but these are in use. Moreover, potentially this method is a faster way of carrying out the work they need to do on the Kilo. How they got it up on the deck is another question!

SPK-46150 left at 1205 UTC on 8 June 2022, probably for Snake Island. The Floating crane had two Tor-M on its deck. The last position on S-AIS came in at 1422 UTC, northwest of Sevastopol. It appears to be following the same route SPK-54150 took previously, so at 6 knots would take approximately 22 hours from that position to reach Snake Island. A rough ETA would be 1230 UTC on 9 June 2022 if it isn’t there already.

SPK-46150‘s activities prior to departing Sevastopol

The use of the Floating cranes as a Tor-M delivery method to Snake Island is certainly a strange one. I said on a Twitter thread that it may be a “one ship fits all” reasoning, rather than using small landing craft or other vessels that may then need a crane to lift the SAM systems onto the jetty. I can’t see any other reason why they’d do it. Unless there are issues with using the Serna class ships at the ramp at the harbour?

It’s certainly a big risk. As I said on the thread. It’s just an idea as to why they might be using the floating cranes but “I’m not saying they’re correct in their methods“.

Admiral Kuznetsov dry dock update

**Update to the small update**

**Imagery amendment – The northern floating crane at the dock entrance is actually a fixed one on the wall. – Thanks to Capt(N) for posting an image that shows this**

A few more Capella Space collection passes were tasked after Admiral Kuznetsov was moved to the 35th Shipyard dry dock.

These were dated 26 and 27 May 2022.

They show that work has started again on the dry dock entrance. Here they will likely seal the mouth up with a temporary steel barrier that has been pile driven into the river bed. From that they can then empty the dry dock and construct the full gate system.

Why they didn’t do this at the time of construction is anyone’s guess, but it is likely they wanted Kuznetsov into the dock as soon as possible so that they can continue the work on the ship.

Three floating cranes appear to be back in attendance to help with the work. The image for 27 May looks like a barrier is already in place, but this is the northern crane.

They used this method to construct the dry dock in the first place, but had to destroy it so that Kuznetsov could be floated in.

In theory, they could use the dry dock as soon as it is empty for any work on the hull that would normally be below the waterline, but this could be dangerous. And with the luck Kuznetsov has had recently…. well, anything could happen!

But, the Russian Navy does appear to like risk and I think they’ll put the lower dock to work as soon as they can. Especially if Kuznetsov has been damaged below the waterline in the previous incidents.