Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled an upgraded sea drone it says can now operate anywhere in the Black Sea, carry heavier weapons and use artificial intelligence for targeting.
Ukraine has used the unmanned naval drones to target Russian shipping and infrastructure in the Black Sea. The Security Service of Ukraine, known by its Ukrainian acronym SBU, has credited strikes by the unmanned vessel known as the “Sea Baby” with forcing a strategic shift in Russia’s naval operations.
The range of the Sea Baby was expanded from 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), SBU said. It can carry up to 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 pounds) of payload, SBU officials said.
At a demonstration attended by The Associated Press, variants included vessels fitted with a multiple-rocket launcher and another with a stabilized machine-gun turret.
SBU Brig. Gen. Ivan Lukashevych said the new vessels also feature AI-assisted friend-or-foe targeting systems and can launch small aerial attack drones and multilayered self-destruct systems to prevent capture.
Developing a new kind of naval warfare
Drone strikes have been used in successful attacks against 11 Russian vessels, including frigates and missile carriers, SBU said, prompting the Russian navy to relocate its main base from Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast.
“The SBU became the first in the world to pioneer this new kind of naval warfare — and we continue to advance it,” Lukashevych said, adding that the Sea Baby has evolved from a single-use strike craft into a reusable, multipurpose platform that expands Ukraine’s offensive options.
Authorities asked that the time and location of the demonstration not be made public for security reasons.
The craft are operated remotely from a mobile control center inside a van, where operators use a bank of screens and controls.
“Cohesion of the crew members is probably the most important thing. We are constantly working on that,” said one operator who was identified only by his call sign, “Scout,” per Ukrainian military protocol.
Ukrainian sea drones helped push back Russia’s navy
The SBU also said sea drones helped carry out other high-profile strikes, including repeated attacks on the Crimean Bridge, most recently targeting its underwater supports in a bid to to render it unusable for heavy military transport.
The Sea Baby program is partially funded by public donations through a state-run initiative and is coordinated with Ukraine’s military and political leadership.
The evolution from expendable strike boats to reusable, networked drones marks an important advance in asymmetric naval warfare, Lukashevych said.
“On this new product, we have installed rocket weaponry that will allow us to work from a large distance outside of the attack range of enemy fire. We can use such platforms to carry heavy weaponry,” he said. “Here we can show Ukrainians the most effective use of the money they have donated to us.”
Associated Press journalists Alex Babenko, Yehor Konovalov and Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
—Efrem Lukatsky and Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press