Its obviously mines exploding. The tank isnt firing at the column. Isnt it strange they cut the clip when the russian tank returned? I bet this tank got destroyed by dismounted infantry not knowing what was behind the wooded area.
Russia-Ukraine War - News and Developments PART 2
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casual
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you must be blind. those ukranian armor mostly got blown up when they were stopped. explain how they drove over mines when they weren't moving?
unclear what happened to the Russian tank afterwards, but that doesn't matter. It was an exemplary performance.
Vergennes
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This clip btw was filmed at the begining of June during the capture of novodarivka, which fell pretty quickly to Ukrainian forces.
That Guy
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The Russians pretty much did the same thing, what's your point?
Let me do a walk through just to show the obvious.
First explosion - russian tank doesnt fire:
Second explosion - russian tank doesnt fire:
Russian tank fires at abandoned vehicles to the right:
Hits vehicle to the right:
Third explosion - russian tank doesnt fire:
Russian tank fires at wooded area to the right:
Ukrainian disabled tank fires into wooded area:
Russian tank retreats under artillery fire:
Russian tank returns:
Russian tank fires round striking wooded area in the background:
Russian tank moving towards abandoned vehicle to the left where it looks like an opening in wooded area - clip stops - my guess tank gets destroyed:
casual
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1. These fields probably aren't mined. If there was mines the Russian tank would not be driving around in them.
2. Against Armor, T72 would fire off APFSDS rounds which have no explosive filler, so you won't see an explosion on impact. The explosions you see on Ukranian tanks were result of ammo detonation. This does not correspond to the time they were struck by Russian APFSDS dart.
3. Ukranian armors were not moving then they exploded. This fact disapproves your silly theory that they drove over mines.
Abdul Rehman Majeed
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Nazis are good guys.
aviator_fan
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There has a been deliberate plan to rule even intelligence by fear / stick/ carrot and have them compete with each other. Thats one thing that non-elected rulers need to get better at: you rule by fear , your military or intelligence will be afraid to tell you the truth and will go along and cause disasters.
Putin has been doing this for the last decade. With overlapping responsibilities and competing for favor , they are more likely to give an incorrect picture and hold back bad news and give the info that will make the top guy feel better.
This is the intel disaster thats taken place here for Russia in this operation:
1. Misjudging Ukraine's will to stay out of Russian influence and people's support of it
2. NATO's assistance
3. Expansion of NATO: to thwart one country that MAY BE have joined, instead 2 new ones have added to NATO
4. Misjudging the leverage on Europe over energy
5. Of course Russians are not the only ones that have done this. Saddam Hussein did it in Iraq at least 3 times: 1979 invading Iran, in 1991 attacking Kuwait, and then in 2001 not allowing inspectors
6. Of course CIA has had bad outcomes (WMDs in Iraq or misjudging how quickly Taliban would over-run Kabul) but it wasn't out of fear or coercion. It was just plain stupidity
Photo by MIKHAIL TERESHCHENKO/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images
“Speak directly!” Putin screamed at him. Hours later, the Russian president ordered a disastrous full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s hubris is a lesson for all modern autocrats who are considering bossing around and humiliating their most powerful officials: Messiness doesn’t always equal loyalty. For years, Putin had cultivated a convoluted web of security organizations and spy agencies in the hopes of ensuring that no one could challenge his power. He succeeded. But with the war in Ukraine stalling all of that, the chaos is coming back to haunt him.
Now it’s the summer of 2023 and Putin has been reduced to giving interviews to state media about how he definitely had control of the situation as Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries stormed hundreds of miles of highway toward Moscow in an armored convoy (even shooting down a Russian aircraft), only to turn around at the very last second. Whether this was a coup or a mutiny is an academic question; it was undoubtedly the clearest sign yet that Putin had lost some control.
Whatever is happening behind the scenes in the halls of Putin’s government, American and Ukrainian intelligence figures have told me the situation is at the very least embarrassing for the Russian president and at worst a harbinger of his eventual demise.
“All of this shit looks so fucking bad on Putin,” said one U.S. intelligence source with knowledge of Russian espionage operations. According to them, relations between Russia’s spy agencies have been far from peaceful lately. The GRU, the military intelligence branch that was active for the Kremlin during the Democratic National Committee hack, has historically been “sympathetic” to Wagner; the main internal security service, the FSB, which is responsible for maintaining order inside Russia and for counterintelligence operations, much less so.
“The FSB are kind of a wild card in all of this, as I see it, being [counterintelligence] and state security,” said the same American source. “Failure to see this coming falls squarely on the FSB.”
Putin has a well-known system of pitting his secret services against one another, which caused rivalries among the SVR—a foreign intelligence branch that is run by Naryshkin—the clumsier GRU, and FSB in order to ensure they would never unite against the Kremlin. All three of those agencies have in the past reportedly run competing operations on the ground in Ukraine, further impairing the country’s war effort come the full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The SVR is unlikely to have played a part in Prigozhin’s attempts on the capital. The SVR have kind of been the black sheep of Russian intel,” they said, and they have received far less attention from the media since the invasion of Ukraine began.
Still, despite the tumult, in the wake of Prigozhin’s mutiny few are cheering on future coups. The same source said that perhaps the West—NATO and the CIA included—are less interested in seeing Putin toppled than we may realize.
“I think it’s one of those ‘devil you know’ situations,” the U.S. intelligence source said to me. There is a feeling within Western spy circles that Putin remaining in power is not the worst option for the stability of the world—provided he loses in Ukraine. There are serious, growing concerns that whoever comes next in Russia might be a figure from the ultranationalist military far right, which calls for nuclear war with Washington almost daily.
Putin, perhaps seeing the same threat from that far-right milieu, arrested former FSB officer, wanted war criminal, and hard-line Kremlin critic Igor Girkin last week. Following the Prigozhin affair, Girkin had again criticized Putin, going so far as to call him a “lowlife,” which likely led to his arrest. British intelligence has already warned Girkin’s imprisonment will “infuriate” sections of the military and security services.
But given Putin’s weakening, it would be “smart to watch Russia struggle as long as we can, push on [Army Tactical Missile Systems] to Ukraine, let them turn the war.”
Still, a far-right takeover isn’t the only possibility, should Putin lose his grip on power. Given “how badly oligarchs and elites in Russia have suffered economically since the start of the war, part of me thinks that whoever would replace Putin would have an interest in trying to appease the West in some way.”
On the other hand, a Ukrainian intelligence source despises Putin and wants to see him gone at all costs. They say, as the head of the CIA did at the Aspen Security Forum, that Prigozhin, who only recently made his first public appearance since the mutiny in a sort of proof-of-life Telegram video at dusk in some unknown location, is “highly likely” to be murdered.
“In my opinion, [the mutiny is the] first marker of the cracking of the regime, and we will see more of something like this in the future,” the Ukrainian source said, adding that the problem for Putin is his stranglehold on the security and military forces within the country.
In the last month alone, Putin is suspected of disappearing General “Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin, a Prigozhin ally, while he fired Major General Ivan Popov for speaking out against the prosecution of the war.
“The Russian government is losing (or even lost already) the monopoly on violence,” the Ukrainian source said. “Plus they have unleashed a very dangerous power: former prisoners with combat experience and no brakes.
“That brings problems and will bring more later.”
While he faces internal pressures at home, Putin hasn’t stopped projecting his power and threatening rivals abroad. In what was a deliberate provocation of a NATO ally, Putin warned Poland against its military buildup along the Belarussian border in response to Wagner amassing its troops in nearby Brest. But the Russian president’s words, now blunted by his stunning failures in Ukraine, don’t carry the same weight.
“Our intelligence services are keeping their hand on the pulse,” said Stanisław Żaryn, the Polish deputy minister and coordinator of special services, in an emailed statement referring to what he says is a little over a thousand Wagner soldiers who recently arrived in Belarus at the invitation of dictator Alexander Lukashenko—a key Kremlin ally.
According to Żaryn, their presence in Belarus “may herald their use against Poland” because the troops aren’t there “to rest.”
“They will carry out missions ordered by the Kremlin. To this day, there are very close ties between the activities of the [Wagner Group] and the Kremlin’s interests.”
Żaryn said Polish intelligence and military agencies are not underestimating the close presence of Wagner and have reinforced their borders accordingly.
But Żaryn sees Putin’s latest statements targeting Poland as a sign of weakness.
“Putin’s and Lukashenko’s words regarding [Wagner] are typical psychological warfare designed to intimidate Poland and Poles,” he said. “Both despots will shout loudly—the louder the worse the war against Ukraine goes for Russia.”
Colin P. Clarke, an expert on Wagner and the director of research at intelligence consultancy firm the Soufan Group, thinks, as usual with Kremlin affairs, it’s “incredibly hard to get an accurate read” on what is actually happening in the halls of the Kremlin, but there’s no doubt that “Putin has been weakened.”
“I’d caution those cheering for Putin’s immediate demise,” Clarke said. “State collapse or civil war in Russia would be bad for the world. Moreover, if Putin is pushed out, his successor could very well be an identical figure; a hard-line nationalist that’s three decades younger and just as reckless as his predecessor.”
Though most top Western spy agencies have stayed silent over what exactly happened during the Prigozhin fiasco in an attempt to prevent Putin from claiming the mutiny was orchestrated by the West, that silence is also beginning to break.
In a rare speech in Prague, the head of Britain’s MI6, Richard Moore, was glib about Putin making nice with Prigozhin: “He cut a deal to save his skin.”
Ben Makuch@BMakuch
Putin has been doing this for the last decade. With overlapping responsibilities and competing for favor , they are more likely to give an incorrect picture and hold back bad news and give the info that will make the top guy feel better.
This is the intel disaster thats taken place here for Russia in this operation:
1. Misjudging Ukraine's will to stay out of Russian influence and people's support of it
2. NATO's assistance
3. Expansion of NATO: to thwart one country that MAY BE have joined, instead 2 new ones have added to NATO
4. Misjudging the leverage on Europe over energy
5. Of course Russians are not the only ones that have done this. Saddam Hussein did it in Iraq at least 3 times: 1979 invading Iran, in 1991 attacking Kuwait, and then in 2001 not allowing inspectors
6. Of course CIA has had bad outcomes (WMDs in Iraq or misjudging how quickly Taliban would over-run Kabul) but it wasn't out of fear or coercion. It was just plain stupidity
Photo by MIKHAIL TERESHCHENKO/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images
Putin Is in a Spy Mess of His Own Making
Prigozhin’s mutiny was the “first marker of the cracking of the regime,” according to one Ukrainian intelligence source.
Ben Makuch
July 26, 2023
Less than two years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin sat alone at a desk in a palatial room lecturing his top national security goons about how Ukraine needed to be invaded. He was an imposing, menacing presence. One of his top spy chiefs, Sergei Naryshkin—himself a hawkish figure who bears more than a passing resemblance to Nosferatu—was reduced to stuttering at the lectern in the wake of Putin’s questioning.“Speak directly!” Putin screamed at him. Hours later, the Russian president ordered a disastrous full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s hubris is a lesson for all modern autocrats who are considering bossing around and humiliating their most powerful officials: Messiness doesn’t always equal loyalty. For years, Putin had cultivated a convoluted web of security organizations and spy agencies in the hopes of ensuring that no one could challenge his power. He succeeded. But with the war in Ukraine stalling all of that, the chaos is coming back to haunt him.
Now it’s the summer of 2023 and Putin has been reduced to giving interviews to state media about how he definitely had control of the situation as Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries stormed hundreds of miles of highway toward Moscow in an armored convoy (even shooting down a Russian aircraft), only to turn around at the very last second. Whether this was a coup or a mutiny is an academic question; it was undoubtedly the clearest sign yet that Putin had lost some control.
Whatever is happening behind the scenes in the halls of Putin’s government, American and Ukrainian intelligence figures have told me the situation is at the very least embarrassing for the Russian president and at worst a harbinger of his eventual demise.
“All of this shit looks so fucking bad on Putin,” said one U.S. intelligence source with knowledge of Russian espionage operations. According to them, relations between Russia’s spy agencies have been far from peaceful lately. The GRU, the military intelligence branch that was active for the Kremlin during the Democratic National Committee hack, has historically been “sympathetic” to Wagner; the main internal security service, the FSB, which is responsible for maintaining order inside Russia and for counterintelligence operations, much less so.
“The FSB are kind of a wild card in all of this, as I see it, being [counterintelligence] and state security,” said the same American source. “Failure to see this coming falls squarely on the FSB.”
Putin has a well-known system of pitting his secret services against one another, which caused rivalries among the SVR—a foreign intelligence branch that is run by Naryshkin—the clumsier GRU, and FSB in order to ensure they would never unite against the Kremlin. All three of those agencies have in the past reportedly run competing operations on the ground in Ukraine, further impairing the country’s war effort come the full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The SVR is unlikely to have played a part in Prigozhin’s attempts on the capital. The SVR have kind of been the black sheep of Russian intel,” they said, and they have received far less attention from the media since the invasion of Ukraine began.
Still, despite the tumult, in the wake of Prigozhin’s mutiny few are cheering on future coups. The same source said that perhaps the West—NATO and the CIA included—are less interested in seeing Putin toppled than we may realize.
“I think it’s one of those ‘devil you know’ situations,” the U.S. intelligence source said to me. There is a feeling within Western spy circles that Putin remaining in power is not the worst option for the stability of the world—provided he loses in Ukraine. There are serious, growing concerns that whoever comes next in Russia might be a figure from the ultranationalist military far right, which calls for nuclear war with Washington almost daily.
Putin, perhaps seeing the same threat from that far-right milieu, arrested former FSB officer, wanted war criminal, and hard-line Kremlin critic Igor Girkin last week. Following the Prigozhin affair, Girkin had again criticized Putin, going so far as to call him a “lowlife,” which likely led to his arrest. British intelligence has already warned Girkin’s imprisonment will “infuriate” sections of the military and security services.
But given Putin’s weakening, it would be “smart to watch Russia struggle as long as we can, push on [Army Tactical Missile Systems] to Ukraine, let them turn the war.”
Still, a far-right takeover isn’t the only possibility, should Putin lose his grip on power. Given “how badly oligarchs and elites in Russia have suffered economically since the start of the war, part of me thinks that whoever would replace Putin would have an interest in trying to appease the West in some way.”
On the other hand, a Ukrainian intelligence source despises Putin and wants to see him gone at all costs. They say, as the head of the CIA did at the Aspen Security Forum, that Prigozhin, who only recently made his first public appearance since the mutiny in a sort of proof-of-life Telegram video at dusk in some unknown location, is “highly likely” to be murdered.
“In my opinion, [the mutiny is the] first marker of the cracking of the regime, and we will see more of something like this in the future,” the Ukrainian source said, adding that the problem for Putin is his stranglehold on the security and military forces within the country.
In the last month alone, Putin is suspected of disappearing General “Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin, a Prigozhin ally, while he fired Major General Ivan Popov for speaking out against the prosecution of the war.
“The Russian government is losing (or even lost already) the monopoly on violence,” the Ukrainian source said. “Plus they have unleashed a very dangerous power: former prisoners with combat experience and no brakes.
“That brings problems and will bring more later.”
While he faces internal pressures at home, Putin hasn’t stopped projecting his power and threatening rivals abroad. In what was a deliberate provocation of a NATO ally, Putin warned Poland against its military buildup along the Belarussian border in response to Wagner amassing its troops in nearby Brest. But the Russian president’s words, now blunted by his stunning failures in Ukraine, don’t carry the same weight.
“Our intelligence services are keeping their hand on the pulse,” said Stanisław Żaryn, the Polish deputy minister and coordinator of special services, in an emailed statement referring to what he says is a little over a thousand Wagner soldiers who recently arrived in Belarus at the invitation of dictator Alexander Lukashenko—a key Kremlin ally.
According to Żaryn, their presence in Belarus “may herald their use against Poland” because the troops aren’t there “to rest.”
“They will carry out missions ordered by the Kremlin. To this day, there are very close ties between the activities of the [Wagner Group] and the Kremlin’s interests.”
Żaryn said Polish intelligence and military agencies are not underestimating the close presence of Wagner and have reinforced their borders accordingly.
But Żaryn sees Putin’s latest statements targeting Poland as a sign of weakness.
“Putin’s and Lukashenko’s words regarding [Wagner] are typical psychological warfare designed to intimidate Poland and Poles,” he said. “Both despots will shout loudly—the louder the worse the war against Ukraine goes for Russia.”
Colin P. Clarke, an expert on Wagner and the director of research at intelligence consultancy firm the Soufan Group, thinks, as usual with Kremlin affairs, it’s “incredibly hard to get an accurate read” on what is actually happening in the halls of the Kremlin, but there’s no doubt that “Putin has been weakened.”
“I’d caution those cheering for Putin’s immediate demise,” Clarke said. “State collapse or civil war in Russia would be bad for the world. Moreover, if Putin is pushed out, his successor could very well be an identical figure; a hard-line nationalist that’s three decades younger and just as reckless as his predecessor.”
Though most top Western spy agencies have stayed silent over what exactly happened during the Prigozhin fiasco in an attempt to prevent Putin from claiming the mutiny was orchestrated by the West, that silence is also beginning to break.
In a rare speech in Prague, the head of Britain’s MI6, Richard Moore, was glib about Putin making nice with Prigozhin: “He cut a deal to save his skin.”
Ben Makuch@BMakuch
Ben Makuch is a national security reporter and former correspondent for VICE News Tonight. His reporting has taken him to the Middle East, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine, where he has covered the war since 2016. He hosted the 2022 podcast American Terror, about far-right extremism in the United States.
aviator_fan
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This is a dangerous development for any Naval power, particularly that have aircraft carriers: a sea borne drone that has a range of 500 miles and can carry a 1 KG warhead. All it needs is accurate targeting information.
Within the Russia context, this is bad news both in Baltic Sea and Black Sea. Imagine the future situation of how lethal this can be in Baltic Sea with Finland and Sweden as newest NATO members. Black Sea: its already in use.
Ukraine CNN —
At a secret makeshift military base a nondescript van and pickup truck tow two gray objects covered by tarpaulin mounted on trailers.
In the driving rain, they resemble something more akin to a Boston Whaler, rather than hiding one of Ukraine’s most closely guarded secrets.
Perched on the banks of a secret lake, CNN was given exclusive access to the base where much-vaunted sea – or surface – drones are tested.
As the tarps are drawn back, a gun-gray, sleek hull appears. Just over five meters (16 feet) in length, its narrow shape resembles a wide canoe.
These naval drones, never before shown to journalists, are increasingly allowing the Ukrainians to attack and surveil the Russians in the Black Sea and on the Crimean Peninsula. A country with no real fleet to speak of is outmanned and outgunned off their own coastline, but these sea drones are proving a vital tool in countering the Russians.
What Ukraine must do to win in its southern push -- and what Russia has in reserve
A government-linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called United24 has sourced money from companies and individuals all around the world, pooling the funds to disperse it to a variety of developers and initiatives from defense to soccer matches.
The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who CNN met with declined to give their full names or even their ranks within Ukraine’s armed forces.
On a creaky wooden jetty, a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go by “Shark.” In front of him is a long black hardshell briefcase. He unveils a bespoke, multi-screened mission control - essentially an elaborate gaming center, complete with levers, joysticks, a monitor and buttons that have covers over switches that shouldn’t be accidentally knocked, with labels like “blast.”
The developer of the drone, who asked to remain anonymous, said their work on the sea drones only began once the war started. It was “very important, because we did not have very many forces to resist the maritime state - Russia. And we needed to develop something of our own, because we didn’t have the existing capabilities”.
Ukraine is now starting to show those capabilities, even if missions are have varying degrees of success.
The latest versions of the drone seen by CNN weigh up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), with an explosive payload of up to 300 kilograms (661 pounds), a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) and maximum speed of 80 kph (50 mph).
Multiple sea drone attack carried out on Russian assets in Crimea and the Black Sea have grabbed recent headlines, with dramatic videos posted online. Some, but by no means all, have been claimed by the security services themselves.
Ukrainian defense sources confirmed to CNN that sea drones were involved in at least two recent attacks: the Kerch Bridge in July and in Crimea’s Sevastopol port last October.
On 14 July the Ukrainian security services, alongside the navy, claimed joint responsibility for the second attack in nine months on the much-derided Kerch Bridge.
These sea drones are targeting the Russians in the Black Sea. They have hit the Admiral Makarov and the Kerch Bridge.
CNN
The vital artery, a nearly $4 billion project by Russia and personally opened by President Putin, is a key target to disrupt and sever the resupply route for Russian forces in the illegally annexed peninsula and in occupied areas of the southern front.
The pre-dawn attack left a section of the bridge unpassable and out of service until September.
The developer, watching his brainchild churn water, says the “these drones are a completely Ukrainian production. They are designed, drawn and tested here. It’s our own production of hulls, electronics and software. More than 50% of the production of equipment is here (in Ukraine).”
The Russians have yet to adjust to Ukraine’s newest capabilities, they claim.
“It is very difficult for them to get into such a small drone, it is very difficult to find it,” the developer says. “The speed of these drones exceeds any sea craft in the Black Sea region at the moment.”
The speed and difficulties in detection may go some way to explaining how the drones that attacked the bridge traveled undetected in the dark across the Black Sea to the bridge.
Ukraine has also been aiming their new equipment at Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which has cruised menacingly off the coast and become a recipient of many vicious volleys of missile attacks.
Before the recent attack left a key piece of Russian infrastructure bruised, other attempted attacks had already put the Russians on notice.
In October last year sea drones were responsible for the attack on the fleet’s flagship, the Admiral Makarov, which was docked in port in Sevastopol. Ukrainian defense sources told CNN that the internal security services (SBU) carried out the attacks.
There was never any real proof given to the damage caused to the vessel, and it later reappeared without any major damage, but the fact that the Ukrainians were able to get within striking distance of the Admiral Makarov reinforces the success rate of the Ukrainians.
The brazen attack also gave Kyiv’s forces a boost and some propaganda for the public. Especially since the Admiral Makarov was newly installed as the Black Sea flagship after the Moskva was famously sunk by Ukrainian forces in April 2022.
Access to the drones is incredibly rare, but they have a top speed of 80 kph, are about five meters (16 feet) long and carry a payload of roughly 30 kilograms (660 pounds).
CNN
“Shark,” languidly guiding the sea-drone from his control station, says :”these drones are designed to destroy ships and the fleet… such things that are used quite successfully and terrify the Russians.”
The damage sustained to the Admiral Makarov was unclear, but the intentions for Kyiv were on show.
The developer argues their work in against Russian naval targets forces them further into the Black Sea, therefore making deeper missile strikes into Ukraine harder. “300, 400, 600 kilometers is a long distance that makes some operations impossible and makes other operations more difficult.”
He said that makes cities like Odesa “safer.” But after the bridge strike, the city came under days of intense air attacks from drones and cruise missiles launched from the Russian Black sea fleet. Twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage sites across the city were hit. Russia claimed it was responding to an area it says was housing sea drones.
The drones’ capabilities and successes have given the developer some bravado though
“I think it will be five to 10 years or more before they (Russians) can effectively counter this type of equipment,” he says. “Their equipment is from the 20th century, ours is from the 21st. There are 100 years between us.”
Within the Russia context, this is bad news both in Baltic Sea and Black Sea. Imagine the future situation of how lethal this can be in Baltic Sea with Finland and Sweden as newest NATO members. Black Sea: its already in use.
Ukraine CNN —
At a secret makeshift military base a nondescript van and pickup truck tow two gray objects covered by tarpaulin mounted on trailers.
In the driving rain, they resemble something more akin to a Boston Whaler, rather than hiding one of Ukraine’s most closely guarded secrets.
Perched on the banks of a secret lake, CNN was given exclusive access to the base where much-vaunted sea – or surface – drones are tested.
As the tarps are drawn back, a gun-gray, sleek hull appears. Just over five meters (16 feet) in length, its narrow shape resembles a wide canoe.
These naval drones, never before shown to journalists, are increasingly allowing the Ukrainians to attack and surveil the Russians in the Black Sea and on the Crimean Peninsula. A country with no real fleet to speak of is outmanned and outgunned off their own coastline, but these sea drones are proving a vital tool in countering the Russians.
What Ukraine must do to win in its southern push -- and what Russia has in reserve
A government-linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called United24 has sourced money from companies and individuals all around the world, pooling the funds to disperse it to a variety of developers and initiatives from defense to soccer matches.
The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who CNN met with declined to give their full names or even their ranks within Ukraine’s armed forces.
On a creaky wooden jetty, a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go by “Shark.” In front of him is a long black hardshell briefcase. He unveils a bespoke, multi-screened mission control - essentially an elaborate gaming center, complete with levers, joysticks, a monitor and buttons that have covers over switches that shouldn’t be accidentally knocked, with labels like “blast.”
The developer of the drone, who asked to remain anonymous, said their work on the sea drones only began once the war started. It was “very important, because we did not have very many forces to resist the maritime state - Russia. And we needed to develop something of our own, because we didn’t have the existing capabilities”.
Battles in the Black Sea
Ukraine is now starting to show those capabilities, even if missions are have varying degrees of success.
The latest versions of the drone seen by CNN weigh up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), with an explosive payload of up to 300 kilograms (661 pounds), a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) and maximum speed of 80 kph (50 mph).
Multiple sea drone attack carried out on Russian assets in Crimea and the Black Sea have grabbed recent headlines, with dramatic videos posted online. Some, but by no means all, have been claimed by the security services themselves.
Ukrainian defense sources confirmed to CNN that sea drones were involved in at least two recent attacks: the Kerch Bridge in July and in Crimea’s Sevastopol port last October.
On 14 July the Ukrainian security services, alongside the navy, claimed joint responsibility for the second attack in nine months on the much-derided Kerch Bridge.
These sea drones are targeting the Russians in the Black Sea. They have hit the Admiral Makarov and the Kerch Bridge.
CNN
The vital artery, a nearly $4 billion project by Russia and personally opened by President Putin, is a key target to disrupt and sever the resupply route for Russian forces in the illegally annexed peninsula and in occupied areas of the southern front.
The pre-dawn attack left a section of the bridge unpassable and out of service until September.
The developer, watching his brainchild churn water, says the “these drones are a completely Ukrainian production. They are designed, drawn and tested here. It’s our own production of hulls, electronics and software. More than 50% of the production of equipment is here (in Ukraine).”
The Russians have yet to adjust to Ukraine’s newest capabilities, they claim.
“It is very difficult for them to get into such a small drone, it is very difficult to find it,” the developer says. “The speed of these drones exceeds any sea craft in the Black Sea region at the moment.”
The speed and difficulties in detection may go some way to explaining how the drones that attacked the bridge traveled undetected in the dark across the Black Sea to the bridge.
Targeting flagships
Ukraine has also been aiming their new equipment at Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which has cruised menacingly off the coast and become a recipient of many vicious volleys of missile attacks.
Before the recent attack left a key piece of Russian infrastructure bruised, other attempted attacks had already put the Russians on notice.
In October last year sea drones were responsible for the attack on the fleet’s flagship, the Admiral Makarov, which was docked in port in Sevastopol. Ukrainian defense sources told CNN that the internal security services (SBU) carried out the attacks.
There was never any real proof given to the damage caused to the vessel, and it later reappeared without any major damage, but the fact that the Ukrainians were able to get within striking distance of the Admiral Makarov reinforces the success rate of the Ukrainians.
The brazen attack also gave Kyiv’s forces a boost and some propaganda for the public. Especially since the Admiral Makarov was newly installed as the Black Sea flagship after the Moskva was famously sunk by Ukrainian forces in April 2022.
Access to the drones is incredibly rare, but they have a top speed of 80 kph, are about five meters (16 feet) long and carry a payload of roughly 30 kilograms (660 pounds).
CNN
“Shark,” languidly guiding the sea-drone from his control station, says :”these drones are designed to destroy ships and the fleet… such things that are used quite successfully and terrify the Russians.”
The damage sustained to the Admiral Makarov was unclear, but the intentions for Kyiv were on show.
The developer argues their work in against Russian naval targets forces them further into the Black Sea, therefore making deeper missile strikes into Ukraine harder. “300, 400, 600 kilometers is a long distance that makes some operations impossible and makes other operations more difficult.”
He said that makes cities like Odesa “safer.” But after the bridge strike, the city came under days of intense air attacks from drones and cruise missiles launched from the Russian Black sea fleet. Twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage sites across the city were hit. Russia claimed it was responding to an area it says was housing sea drones.
The drones’ capabilities and successes have given the developer some bravado though
“I think it will be five to 10 years or more before they (Russians) can effectively counter this type of equipment,” he says. “Their equipment is from the 20th century, ours is from the 21st. There are 100 years between us.”
On the morning of July 30, an attempt by Ukrainian UAVs to attack objects in the city of Moscow was thwarted. One of the Ukrainian UAVs was reportedly destroyed in the air by air defense systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region. Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City office building complex.
Footage of a night battle between a Russian and Ukrainian tank in April near Kremennaya has been published, the models of both tanks are unknown. A Ukrainian tank reportedly drove into position and was spotted by a Russian tank crew. The Russian tank fired the first shot, first with a guided missile, then the second shot was fired with HEAT ammunition. It was not possible to find out the model of the affected tank, since by the morning it was evacuated by Ukrainian units.
Footage of a night battle between a Russian and Ukrainian tank in April near Kremennaya has been published, the models of both tanks are unknown. A Ukrainian tank reportedly drove into position and was spotted by a Russian tank crew. The Russian tank fired the first shot, first with a guided missile, then the second shot was fired with HEAT ammunition. It was not possible to find out the model of the affected tank, since by the morning it was evacuated by Ukrainian units.
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