The Russian Navy's Commander-in-Chief Has Been Removed and Replaced

 

Russian state media has confirmed the dismissal of the Russian Navy's top officer, Adm. Nikolai Evmenov. He has been removed and replaced by the commander of the Northern Fleet, Adm. Aleksandr Moiseev. 

Evmenov began his career in the Russian Navy's nuclear-submarine community, and he came up through the ranks in the Pacific Fleet's ballistic-missile submarine division. After a series of staff assignments, he took command of the Northern Fleet in 2016, and was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy in 2019. 

Evmenov kept his role through the first two years of the invasion of Ukraine, despite a string of damaging losses in the Black Sea. Ukraine's navy lacks a fleet, but it has destroyed or damaged more than a dozen Russian warships using only long-range missiles and suicide drones. The Black Sea Fleet has gone through two commanding officers in this time period, Adm. Igor Osipov (dismissed August 2022) and Adm. Viktor Sokolov (dismissed February 2024).

He will be replaced by Admiral Aleksandr Moiseev. Like Evmenov, Moiseev is a submariner by background and has a background in the Northern Fleet. He also spent a year commanding the Black Sea Fleet from 2018-19; during this period, Ukraine accused him of involvement in the Kerch Strait Incident, a maritime skirmish between the 2014 seizure of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of 2022.