Unmanned Ukrainian surface ships are laying underwater mines that have already damaged several Russian warships in the Black Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Brigadier General Ivan Lukashevych of Ukraine’s SBU security service described to the Journal the development of a specialized Sea Baby drone capable of laying Western-supplied bottom mines — small 400-pound mines placed under the seabed.
According to Lukashevich, once in place, the mines can detect noise and electromagnetic signals from a ship and detonate when one is nearby.
The newspaper reports that the mines have so far damaged four Russian warships, including the missile corvette Samum and the patrol ship Pavel Derzhavin.
While successful attacks on Russian ships using maritime drones packed with explosives are well documented, the use of drones to lay mines has not received the same attention.
But after Russia strengthened its defenses at the Crimea port of Sevastopol, making explosive naval drone attacks much more difficult, mines came into play, the Journal reported.
After carefully mapping the routes used by civilian and military ships last summer, Lukashevich’s team sent drones to lay mines, according to the media outlet.
The Samum triggered one of the mines in September, the newspaper reports. At the time, intelligence sources informed Reuters and Ukrainian media that it had been struck by a Sea Baby drone.
A month later, the Pavel Derzhavin was damaged by an explosion, attributed to a Sea Baby by anonymous SBU sources.
Two days later, the ship left Sevastopol for repairs – only to be hit again, this time by one of Lukashevich’s mines, the Journal reported.
The tugboat sent to rescue him also hit a mine, according to the media outlet.
Lukashevich also told the Journal that Ukrainian naval drone operators are now trained to work in small squads of 10 to 20 drones, which could collectively replicate the role of a warship.
Although it does not have a conventional navy, Ukraine continues to weigh in the balance in the Black Sea.
Ukraine claims to have damaged or destroyed at least a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet since the start of the full-scale invasion, a feat which has seen Russia relocate much of its naval operations from its headquarters from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.
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