SSU Sea Baby naval drones hit the Russian shadow fleet tanker Dashan in the Black Sea.
The vessel, flying the flag of the Comoros Islands, was moving in Ukraine’s exclusive economic zone in the direction of the “Novorossiysk” port terminal. It was proceeding at maximum speed with its transponder turned off.
This was a joint operation of the 13th Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence of the SSU and the Ukrainian Navy.
As a result of the attack, the tanker sustained critical damage. According to preliminary information, the vessel has been disabled.
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Baby drone to do do do 🎶
Honestly the Ukraine war might be one of the most decisively lost naval conflicts in modern history given how much more time and resources Russia had to build a threatening navy than Ukraine had. Ukraine is literally chasing Russia out of the sea, it is wild to see happen and it is majorly underreported evolution of war especially when compared to extensive coverage about how networked drones are changing land and air warfare.
You shouldn’t confuse the number or cost of the Russian Navy navy ship in the Black Sea with the quality of the Russian Navy ships in the Black Sea. They’ve given an obviously pathetic showing, with the sinking of Moskva especially.
But weapons like these aren’t really going to work against a prepared navy. If the Russian fleet did more than sit in port, they could probably escort convoys and protect against these weapons pretty easily.
The fact that they’re not, says a LOT about the Russian navy.
It also speaks to how quietly powerful Ukraine has become as an international military power, which might seem like an exaggeration to say but you have to step back and think about how deep of a problem littoral security has been for naval empires in the 20th and 21st century. The US really didn’t ever figure it out, the Littorial Combat Ship class was an utter failure and if it weren’t for helicopters basically being a cheat code for many dynamic situations there likely would have been a lot more blowback against the US Navy during the height of its unipolar global power for failing to extend the power projection of naval power to atomized littoral contexts or account for the true degree of vulnerability in littoral environments that large open ocean vessels inherently have.
Any economic trading power in the world that isn’t laser focused on how unmanned vehicles are being used to successfully stabilize and destablize maritime shipping littoral security in the Ukraine war is being foolish and there really isn’t anything to learn from the Russian side here, just the Ukrainian side…
Yes the international community can just watch Ukraine and copy their tactics and technology, but undeniably Ukraine has become at least the temporary center of littoral naval power going into the 21st century. In a modern context no other nation’s military has been subjected to such granular mass infiltration attacks along its littoral borders and managed to so effectively turn the tables with drones and new tactics and the implications for establishing security in littoral environments will echo throughout the rest of this century.
TL;DR Don’t underestimate how valuable Ukraine’s knowledge of how to defend ports and waterways from small unit infiltration and sabotage attacks is, it is a stupendously valuable knowledge skillset that Ukraine has honed both sides of the coin of, both as the defender and the attacker. It wasn’t a given this would happen and Ukraine deserves an immense amount of credit for achieving such a high degree of proficiency at it.
They used helicopters to take out Ukrainian naval drones for a short while. Then Ukraine slapped a MANPADS on one of the naval drones and sent it in later. God that was fantastic.
One has to appreciate how we have come full circle in the black sea. Anyone remember russia threatening the grain exports and everyone caring about the grain deal in 2022 and how russia was pulling out of it? Yeah…situation looks quite different now.
It doesn’t look like the first explosions penetrated the hull. I suppose that the intent was to knock out the rudder but this outcome is still surprising to me.
They probably want to disable it, not create an oil slick.
It’s a safe bet the tanker is empty. It’s riding so high in the water that its rudder is partially exposed.
