Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Ukraine: The Country Putin Wants to Invade Most" video.

You are wrong on the facts. Moscow ALWAYS controlled the Sevastopol naval base. Russia paid Ukraine a rent of one ruble a year. (Same as their world famous rocket launch base in Kazakhstan.) As for their fleet, Sevastopol is too small. It's now just a token. The US has the US Constitution as a flag ship. The British have HMS Victory as a flag ship. Both are museum ships, in reality. Sevastopol has the same character for the Russian Navy. It's moved over to Novorossiysk -- which is proximate to Russia's oil export terminals. Down the coast is Sochi, the vacation mecca of Soviet and Russian leaders going back decades. These are the assets that the Russian navy now prioritizes. It utterly dominates the Black Sea, anyway. It's never going to be challenged. A couple of show flights and ship excursions are merely diplomatic-military 'statements.'
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@_TeaMaster Absolutely right.
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@MetalAriel The main Russian naval base on the Black Sea is at Novorossiysk... and yes... it's a warm water port. Novorossiysk is close to Russia's oil export terminals -- and to Sochi -- where Putin likes to vacation every Summer. For obvious reasons -- look at a map -- Moscow continues to build out Novorossiysk. Sevastopol is TOO SMALL. It's a legacy naval base where Moscow continues to post its fleet's flag. Now that Putin has snagged Crimea, (2014) perhaps he will ramp up Sevastopol, anyway. Remember that Ukraine has, essentially, no navy. Further, for all practical purposes Saint Petersburg is a warm water port -- as Russia has state-of-the art ice breakers. ALL European nations adjoining the Baltic Sea keep ice breakers on standby as ice is an issue -- in ports -- most years. (Even the Sea of Azov usually ices over every Winter. But that ice is so thin, I wouldn't walk on it. Heh. ) We'll skip past Kaliningrad. The main fleet of Russia is based in the Arctic. It's really a submarine based force -- because that's where the real action is. Ice means practically nothing to it.
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PR has sub-normal power rates, all in all. Miners in paradise.
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Jake, time has passed Sevastopol by. It's TOO SMALL. That naval base had been rented to Russia for one ruble per year. Didn't cha know? Yes, the Russian still have their HQ (ie flag for show) there -- but the base is TOO SMALL for its fleet. The main base, gradually built up over the years, is off to the east: Novorossiysk. It's also much, much closer to Russia's oil exporting pipeline terminals. Google et. al are still witless as to what has transpired -- and proof again that you can't trust the Internet to know the facts. Search engines are locked into the PAST. The military facts of life: the Black Sea is a POND, not even a lake by modern naval standards. So it's stupid to deploy anything beyond diplomatic// flag-waving naval ships there. So, NATO doesn't. (Aircraft carriers and submarines are prohibited to outside nations by treaty.) Now that Biden is the weakest national figurehead since Charles II of Spain, Putin is bringing out the salami slicer.
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