The retreat by Russia’s Black Sea fleet from Crimea after weeks of Ukrainian missile attacks is another major setback for President Putin in a war of repeated humiliations for the Kremlin dictator.
The redeployment of the fleet to the Russian port of Novorossiysk and a new naval base in Abkhazia, the Georgian breakaway region that is propped up by Moscow, will not deprive the Kremlin of the ability to strike Ukrainian cities.
