Russia appears to have outsourced maritime defense to a new mammal: dolphins.
According to a review of satellite pictures by the commercial business Maxar and the US Naval Institute, Moscow has positioned trained dolphins at the entrance to a key Black Sea port. It is presumably to guard a naval facility against prospective Ukrainian strikes.
An analysis of satellite pictures by H I Sutton, a submarine analyst who specializes in the usage of marine mammal pens and wrote for the navy institute, reveals two transportable dolphin pens were relocated to the Sevastopol harbor in February. It is around the time Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
He says the dolphins could be valuable in stopping Ukrainian divers from infiltrating the harbor underwater. It can also help in sabotaging warships that are just out of range of Ukrainian missiles.
Dolphins: The “most obvious” type of mammal
Dolphins were “the most obvious type of mammal” useful to protect the naval base in the Black Sea, Sutton said in an email to NBC News. He also said that these were most likely the same dolphins’ pens that Russia utilized in Tartus, Syria, in 2018. It was to oppose enemy divers, collect stuff from the seafloor, and conduct intelligence operations using dolphins.
Maxar Technologies is the company that provided the satellite imagery. It also stated it “agreed with the analytic assessments made by our partners at the USNI.”
Russia’s Sevastopol naval base is not the largest in the Black Sea. But it is critical for the military due to its closeness to the Crimean Peninsula’s southern point. Moscow annexed it in 2014.
Last week, a top Russian military commander stated that Russia’s goal is to capture full control of southern and eastern Ukraine. Also, it has the goal of building a land bridge to Crimea. This “Battle for the Donbas” in eastern Ukraine is the second phase of Russia’s war in Ukraine, following its setbacks in the north and around Kyiv.