Russian cruise missile attacks from the Black Sea used to be much more common. Ships were launching cruise missiles that were attacking Ukraine where they hurt the most. However, nowadays these sea-borne attacks are significantly more rare. What happened?
Ukrainian marine surface drones. These drones, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, were used to attack the Crimean Bridge on 17 July 2023. Image credit: Ssu.gov.ua via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
Well, what happened was the defenders of Ukraine got new tools to combat the Russian Black Sea navy. Anti-ship missile systems, such as the R-360 Neptun are very important. The Ukrainian Neptun sank the flagship of the Black Sea navy missile cruiser Moskva.
After that, the Russian fleet started keeping away from the open waters, but Ukraine now has many different tools. One of them is marine surface drones – small unmanned boats that have a significant amount of explosives and ram themselves into ships, harbours, and even the illegal Crimean bridge.
The head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasiliy Maliuk, revealed that the service attacked not only the Crimean bridge, but also the ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet with marine drones.
In October 2022, sea drones of the Security Service of Ukraine attacked Russian ships in the Sevastopol Bay. Four warships were damaged during that attack, including the frigate Admiral Makarov.
Just this year the Sea Baby met these targets:
- missile carriers Samum and Pavel Derzhavin;
- fuel tanker SIG;
- landing ship Olenegorskiy Gornyak;
- large military tugboat Nikolay Muru;
- reconnaissance and hydrography vessel Vladimir Kozitskiy.
The Sea Baby was developed by the Security Service of Ukraine. Its development began shortly after the invasion in February 2022. Sea Baby carries an explosive charge of 850 kg. According to unofficial estimates, the unit price of this marine drone would be around $250,000. It is a very powerful weapon, although some Sea Babies get destroyed before reaching their target.
Ukraine has other marine surface drones too and the name “Sea Baby” is sometimes used to describe any of them.
Russia started withdrawing its Black Sea navy away from the Ukrainian coasts. This made the cruise missile attacks against Ukraine that much more rare. Granted, this effect was caused not only by the unmanned boats, but also by cruise missiles that attacked Sevastopol.
Russia lost multiple ships in this war against Ukraine, which does not have a functional navy anymore. The missile cruiser Moskva and the Rostov-on-Don, a Russian Navy Kilo-class submarine, are probably the largest losses of the Black Sea navy. Moskva was defeated by Neptun missiles, while the Rostov-on-Don fell victim to a cruise missile attack against a dry dock where it was stationed for servicing.
Written by Povilas M.
Sources: Censor.net, Wikipedia