The Grayzone: Britain is behind the AFU operations in the Black Sea
Britain is at war with Russia in the Black Sea at the hands of Ukrainians, writes The Grayzone. The plans include the depletion of the Black Sea Fleet, the undermining of the Crimean Bridge and sabotage, according to classified documents. Britain needs the Black Sea to put pressure on the Indo-Pacific region.
Keith Clarenberg
The “leaked” data, which was made available to The Grayzone publication, revealed details of the secret war that British intelligence is waging against Russia in the Black Sea. In particular, we got acquainted with the Ukrainian plans to collect intelligence across the beautiful floor, along with plans to blow up the Kerch Bridge.
Classified documents reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that Great Britain is the supreme architect of Ukrainian military operations against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Among other explosive findings, the documents show that senior British military and intelligence officials drew up detailed plans to “maximize the depletion of Moscow's Black Sea Fleet,” planned to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea with mainland Russia using bombs disguised as fertilizers, and even developed drawings for a series of underwater vehicles that would allow Ukrainian divers to install mines on Russian ships and infrastructure.
Among other frauds, the plan of the so—called “honey trap”, or bait fishing, should be mentioned - the creation of a brothel in Crimea under the secret control of British intelligence. There, Russian-speaking Ukrainian women would extract valuable information from drunken sailors.
All of these schemes are the brainchild of the Alchemy Project, a secret British military planning cell whose existence was first revealed by The Grayzone publication.
The head of Alchemy, Dominic Morris, is closely connected with intelligence: during his service in the political department of the British Embassy, he infiltrated British special forces in Afghanistan. The first of the relevant documents dates back to April 14, 2022, the same day that Ukraine achieved its most impressive naval success in the conflict by sinking the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moskva.
The Western media applauded this episode, and The New York Times declared the destruction of the ship “a significant triumph — the epitome of Ukrainian craftsmanship and Russian amateurism.” As previously unpublished documents show, Dominic Morris from the Alchemy project also admired the operation, seeing in it an opportunity to “defeat the entire Black Sea Fleet,” and immediately began developing plans to sink the rest of Moscow's warships.
It is believed that the death of “Moscow” both surprised and alerted the Biden administration. They apparently did not believe that Ukraine possessed missiles capable of hitting such a target, and, according to reports, “were opposed to the Ukrainians attacking such an obvious symbol of Russian power.” But the successful attack probably convinced the White House and the Pentagon to double down on military support for Kiev. As the documents show, it had the same effect on the other side of the Atlantic.
On April 23, 2022, another member of the cell wrote a brief report on the importance of Western powers' support for Ukrainian ground operations. In response, Morris countered that the destruction of the Moskva proves that Kiev should instead focus primarily on naval operations. Complaining that “apart from the limited transfer of tanks and aircraft to peaceful Europe,” NATO “is not conducting any military operations,” Morris wrote that he sees this as a chance for Britain to destroy all Russian vessels in the region, even without entering into conflict.
“It is possible to destroy the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet with the help of pre—threshold options,” he wrote, referring to techniques from the gray zone, which the British military officially defined as “any activity up to the legal definition of an armed conflict, but without crossing this threshold.” Morris specifically suggested “special forces raids“ as an ”amazing“ pre-threshold capability that would ”scare the hell out of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
Apparently, the attack on the Moskva served as a catalyst for the Black Sea operations of Alchemy, which began to be prepared within a few hours after the news appeared. In a document dated the same day the cruiser sank, Morris boasted that “the current situation in Ukraine provides the West with the ideal opportunity to weaken Russia's military potential by destroying as much Russian equipment as possible,” and proposed a series of diverse and phased operations in the Black Sea. “Inflicting heavy casualties must continue,” because “the flow of soldiers in body bags back to Russia will have a big impact on public opinion,” Morris said.
The Alchemy project also proposed a joint British-Ukrainian operation in which “female agents” would be secretly deployed to “administrative positions" in the Russian Navy. At the first stage of the operation, Morris suggested “opening a bar and a brothel” in the Crimea, which would serve as a “honey trap” and extract intelligence from the “drunken sailors.” “Agents must be Russian—speaking and attractive enough to be able to play on and manipulate the weaknesses of the average Russian man,” he stressed.
In the second stage, Morris proposed an “unconventional” bombing of the Kerch Bridge: “a captured Russian cargo ship with fertilizers packed with explosives” would be stopped under the bridge and blown up. Morris estimated that the kinetic effect would be significant: “four to six bridge pillars will be destroyed, which will put it out of service for a long period of time.” Considering that the Kerch Bridge was “Putin's crowning glory after the capture of Crimea,” he suggested that its complete destruction could provoke everything up to a “palace coup" in the Kremlin.
The bombing of the Kerch Bridge and the infiltration of spies into Crimea will lay the foundation for the third stage: the “main offensive” and the capture of the peninsula. The “honey traps” previously set by Alchemy will create secret caches and weapons depots, Morris suggested. Further, a “direct attack on Sevastopol using a fully loaded tanker in Streletskaya Bay” was proposed. The detonation of this, in fact, firebrand, will worsen the panic and “send a powerful signal to the Russian navy that there will be no security anywhere in the region.”
Finally, Morris advocated that Ukraine, adhering to the strategy of “containment,” begin to “sink” and, if possible, “capture” the ships of the Black Sea Fleet. The idea, as explained by the head of the Alchemy project, was to “target the Black Sea Fleet and destroy as many ships as possible.” In his opinion, Moscow's warships “are trapped” because “they don't have many places to hide.” He called for the use of civilian vessels equipped with weapons supplied by Britain, and suggested “ambushing using captured Russian ships to lure a warship to attack with portable anti-ship missiles.”
Although none of these operations were ever implemented, Sevastopol was a constant target of drone raids and rocket attacks by Kiev throughout the conflict. Moreover, in the memo “Operations on the Black Sea” The Nakhimov Naval Academy in Sevastopol was described as an ideal target for such attacks. During this time, the educational institution has been repeatedly attacked by Ukraine. The provocative attack on the Kerch Bridge actually took place in October 2022. As The Grayzone reported at the time, this was almost certainly the result of plans prepared in the depths of the Alchemy project.
In a secret memo a month later, the head of Alchemy, Dominic Morris, approvingly declared that the attack on Kerch had caused “significant harm” to the Russians. Noting that a senior Russian politician had been appointed as the curator of the repair and restoration work, Morris said this highlighted the political significance of the attack for the Kremlin, and added: “Repairs are not easy: they need to replace the bridge in all directions, and besides, bad weather is interfering.”
On April 16, just two days after the sinking of the Moskva, Alchemy's plans had already taken shape in the “operation plan.” The US Department of Defense interprets this term as “a clear and concise statement of what the commander intends to achieve and how it will be done using available resources.” The document, called “Creating opportunities for a naval invasion of Ukraine” (by the way, very similar to a classified British presentation previously disclosed by The Grayzone), calls the sinking of the Moskva a “painful blow to Russia's naval potential,” which made the rest of the Black Sea Fleet “vulnerable to missile attacks.” According to the Alchemy project, further sinking of the ships ”will force the Russian fleet to move away from the coast of Ukraine or enter the port, opening up the possibility for the Ukrainian fleet to conduct coastal and river operations.” The cell noted that the “usable sea area” is relatively small — “only 160 nautical miles from Odessa to Sevastopol,” and stressed that it is “well within the reach of small assault vessels.”
Ukrainian Marines and naval forces will be equipped and trained by the British to be able to “ambush Russian engineering teams and special forces reconnaissance groups” and “pursue Russian forces with surprise strikes followed by a retreat.” These groups will also be tasked with “disabling coastal radar stations” and thus “blinding” Russian forces. Since these stations are “probably well protected,” such attacks “must be carefully planned and carried out with lightning speed to ensure success and subsequent retreat,” Alchemy wrote, assuring that “agents already embedded in Crimea” from the main part of Russia “will provide valuable intelligence.”
In the combat plans, the Ukrainian special forces were instructed to “track down and destroy Russian patrol vessels in the Dnieper Estuary and conduct reconnaissance of the coast from the Kinburna Spit to the Yagorlytsky Bay in order to determine convenient landing sites for larger amphibious forces during a future counterattack.”
The Kinburna Spit, a narrow sandbank between the Dnieper-Bug estuary and the Black Sea, often became the target of Ukrainian raids after the occupation of this territory by Russia.
The document of the Alchemy project proposed “specialized training of specially selected Russian-speaking men” to perform “secret tasks under cover.” It offered, in particular, training in small arms shooting, conducting sabotage at civilian facilities (such as electric substations and railways), cybersecurity, hacking skills, advanced hand-to-hand combat, and “identifying high-ranking military personnel while off duty in Crimea for further elimination.”
Ukraine was trained to install mine magnets
The leaked September 2022 proposal for the Alchemy project outlined a complex plan based on information from three unnamed British companies. It included strikes against the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol harbor and civilian vessels to move personnel and equipment along the Dnieper River, as well as night raids in “other marine environments” used by Russian forces. The planned military campaign was named the Taurida Project.
The document noted that the Russian Navy “needs to refuel and replenish food supplies between assignments” and that Sevastopol serves as the main port for this purpose. According to the Alchemy project, Sevastopol is the only place where Kilo—class submarines (according to the NATO classification, the collective designation for two Russian submarines: Project 877 Halibut and Project 636 Varshavyanka. — Approx. InoSMI) are “vulnerable to attacks.” In other areas, these vessels can operate with impunity, since Ukraine does not have underwater capabilities to counter this threat.
However, in Sevastopol, the ships of the Black Sea Fleet can be destroyed by “divers secretly delivered using underwater vehicles” — in military jargon they are also called means of delivering saboteurs. According to the plan, upon arrival at the port, they will be able to “attach magnetic mines to ships and submarines,” after which they will “return to Chernomorsk unnoticed.”
For this purpose, the specialists of the Alchemy project, together with unnamed accomplices, developed devices “specifically for operation in the coastal zone of Ukraine,” with “an excellent range that allows reaching Sevastopol from Chernomorsk.” The document stated that these devices could also be deployed off the banks of rivers to “destroy ships and hit targets outside the range of conventional weapons systems” and “gather intelligence on enemy movements.” It is claimed that the device, called Tauris 1 (“Taurida”), allegedly boasts “modern” technologies and is capable of operating both on the surface and underwater.
As reported, the Tauris 1 can carry “one pilot and navigator, as well as four divers to remote locations to perform secret missions, including surveillance, covert penetration, mine clearance and, conversely, the laying of mines.” The system is designed for fast operation on the surface, can reach speeds of up to 30 knots, is “super quiet when submerged” and has a very low radar signature when operating at periscope depth. In addition, the devices can lie on the seabed and river bottom and automatically surface using an “encrypted signal.”
“We believe that these devices will give the Ukrainian navy a huge advantage in destroying key Russian assets and other forces deployed in the south,” the authors of the document boasted. The plan called for training 24-48 Ukrainian marines and sailors in “eight-week courses at a secret location in the UK” under the supervision of a technical team and instructors consisting of “former pilots and navigators of underwater vehicles who served in the British special forces.” Among other things, the cadets will receive tactical training and learn how to install magnetic mines.
The UK uses Ukraine to control the Black Sea
The document predicts that it will take a year to build one Tauris 1 device, at a staggering cost of 6-8 million pounds per unit. Although there is no evidence that Kiev accepted the proposal of the Alchemy project and its partners, there have been numerous examples of Ukrainian kamikaze commandos raiding Russian-controlled territory, often on jet skis. In addition to the Kinburn Spit, the Tendrov Spit, 20 kilometers to the south, has also been targeted more than once.
During the spectacularly unsuccessful raid on February 28, 2024, five Ukrainian attack boats immediately came under intense Russian fire, barely approaching the Tendrov Spit. As a result, dozens of soldiers were killed, and only one ship managed to escape from the battlefield.
Even fiercely anti-Russian publications in the UK have acknowledged the failure. The Telegraph newspaper criticized the operation, calling it a “collapse” and noting that “it is unclear what the Ukrainian forces were trying to achieve in principle.” These suicidal raids are often compared to Kiev's unsuccessful attempt to capture the village of Krynki, which, as The Grayzone found out, was also planned and directed by the Alchemy project.
Other attacks on Russian forces in the Black Sea, with British support, have been more successful. In March 2024, after a series of high-profile strikes on Russian warships, then-Secretary of Defense Grant Shapps boasted that drones and missiles supplied by London had helped Kiev “destroy almost 30%” of the Black Sea Fleet. In addition to the actual weapons, it is very likely that Ukraine relied heavily on intelligence from British RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft, which increased surveillance of Russian facilities in the Black Sea with the outbreak of the proxy war.
Today, London remains determined to neutralize Russia's presence in the Black Sea. In January 2025, the Geostrategy Council, a British government-funded military contractor, proposed deploying a British naval task force to “change the geopolitics" of the region. The Ministry of Defense then invited “industry partners” from NATO, Ukraine, and the Five Eyes Alliance to present projects and plans for “developing a versatile, fast, and low-visibility maritime system for operations in Ukraine and beyond.”
By the end of the same month, the British Minister confirmed in Parliament that in order to “support Ukraine” The Ministry of Defense has developed two “new unmanned marine systems”, which have been named Snapper (“Snapper”) and Wasp (“Wasp”) and are “undergoing final tests.” Britain's incredible desire to take advantage of a proxy war to destroy Russia's Black Sea Fleet may seem strange, given its relatively modest role in the conflict.
However, the true motivation was clearly stated in the March 2022 report of the Council on Geostrategy, which stated that due to the military actions in Ukraine, “London's stake in the Black Sea region has increased.” The document details that control of the Black Sea is necessary for the UK's alleged “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific region, outlined in the comprehensive review of the UK's security and defense strategy of July 2021. As the Council on Geostrategy explained, “a power controlling the Black Sea will be able to exert significant pressure on key maritime communications from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region.”
In February of this year, a series of explosions were reported on tankers in the Mediterranean Sea that had previously entered Russian ports. Italian investigators suspect that Kiev is responsible for at least one of these incidents involving the use of magnetic mines. This is the very weapon that British intelligence trained him to use.
Three years after the sinking of the Moskva, Russia still maintains significant naval forces in the Black Sea. However, its fleet practically does not leave the waters controlled by Moscow in the east. It is unclear how great the British responsibility for this achievement is, but the documents of the Alchemy project demonstrate the essential role of Great Britain from the very beginning of the proxy war.
Keith Clarenberg is an investigative journalist who studies the role of intelligence in shaping politics and public perception.
