File image.
Video footage showing Russian Lancet loitering munitions sinking two Ukrainian drone boats in the Black Sea surfaced online on September 13.
It is unclear when exactly the strikes took place, but a day earlier the Russian Ministry of Defense said that eight “high-speed uncrewed surface vehicles” were destroyed by the military’s Dnepr Group of Forces and the navy’s Black Sea Fleet over the past week.
The two boats seen getting hit in the footage appear to be versions of Ukraine’s latest Seawolf platform. Both were clearly equipped to launch first-person view (FPV) suicide drones.
Similar drone-carrying uncrewed boats have been used to attack the Crimean Peninsula on multiple occasions in recent months.
The Seawolf was unveiled by the company Nordex earlier this year. The platform is structured around a core platform with the main components, including the hull, engine, propulsion, communications, optics, control systems, remain unchanged, while the upper deck is designed to allow the installation of mission-specific systems, like for example FPV drone launcher and control system.
The platform measures 7.5 meters in length, 2.2 meters in width, with a hull height of 0.52 meters. The total payload capacity is up to 1,650 kilograms, with a designated warhead payload capacity of up to 450 kilograms. The approximate overall weight of the base vehicle is 950 kilograms.
The Seawolf is typically powered by a 270-horsepower diesel engine and carries 1,400 liters of fuel. It is said to have an operational range of over 1,600 kilometers.
While the Russian MoD reported the destruction of eight Ukrainian drone boats over the past week, media reports suggest that at least ten were launched from the port city of Vylkove in the Odessa region, and that’s only from September 9 and onward.
At least one of the boats was likely responsible for the September 10 FPV drone attack on a Project MPSV07 rescue ship of the Russian Marine Rescue Service in Novorossiysk Bay. Another was spotted ten destroyed near the Russian resort city of Sochi. Others are believed to be still drafting in the eastern part of the Black Sea.
The Russian strategy to counter this threat relies heavily on drones. Larger drones like the Forpost-R and Orion are used to locate and track Ukrainian boats, which are later targeted, in most cases with Lancet loitering munition.
While the Russian military has been reacting faster and more efficiently, Ukraine has been also working to increase the production of drone boats and improve their armament.
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disclamer : no venezuelan fishermen were destroyed in the making of this nato testing exercise. nato will not achieve its black sea dreams.
where are they being produced? why russia has not yet flattened anythng related?
there are massive factories and ship yards in turkey making these and the rest of the new ukrainian navy fleet (x2 new nato standard ukrainian corvettes have already been shown on tv).
other factories are in the uk, where the british are also refitting ships for the ukrainian navy.
lots of other countries send parts to ukraine, but turkey and the uk are the big makers.
well done. they are hard to spot from air in a distance. perhaps russia has expanded its sonar and uhf buoy network from high value coastline segments to the entire crimean coastline and the rest of its black sea coastline.