In order to stand up to the Russian warships, Ukraine wants to set up a "fleet of sea drones". After the first attack a few weeks ago, Kyiv is now publicly presenting the new naval weapon - and also revealing some technical details.
At the end of October, Ukrainian sea drones attacked the Russian Black Sea Fleet off Sevastopol. According to Kiev, three Kremlin warships were hit in the attack, including the flagship "Admiral Makarov". Moscow denied the information and only spoke of some minor damage without giving details.
A short time later, the Ukrainian military also posted footage of the attack on the Internet. You can see the unmanned watercraft racing towards their targets at high speed and, in one case, being shot at. However, little was known about the Ukrainian naval drone that was used. So far, there have only been pictures of a drone washing ashore near Sevastopol in September.
The pictures taken at that time show a hull about the size of a kayak, on which a camera, an infrared viewing device and a flat antenna, presumably for navigation, are mounted. With two sensors attached to the bow, the naval drones are likely to ram their target, thereby activating an explosive charge in the boat's belly.
Now Kyiv has revealed more details about the sea drone. In addition to technical data, photos and a video clip of the new weapon can be seen on the state crowdfunding platform United24. With the publication, the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyj wants to collect donations to buy more copies. "We want to collect funds for an entire fleet of sea drones," Zelenskyj announced last Sunday.
According to the technical specifications, the swimming drone is 5.50 meters long and can weigh up to a ton when fully charged. The radius of action is given as 400 kilometers, the maximum speed as 80 kilometers per hour, the duration of the operation as 60 hours. Up to three streams in HD resolution are used for video transmission. 256-bit encryption should be used for communication. The unit price is given as 250,000 US dollars.
Despite the new information, it is still unclear where the swimming drone came from in the first place. The fact is that officially no NATO country has this weapon in its arsenal. The portal Navalnews, which specializes in naval topics, therefore speculates that it could be an improvised boat made in Ukraine. In an interview with "Spiegel", Sebastian Bruns, an expert in maritime strategy at the University of Kiel, assumes that Ukraine received international support for the development.
