Max Boot
It hasn’t received the attention it deserves, but Ukraine’s unexpected victory in the battle of the Black Sea could be a landmark achievement in the annals of naval warfare. Without a standing navy of its own, Ukraine has disabled at least one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, broken the Russian naval blockade and reopened the Black Sea to its grain exports. Ukraine’s export volumes are now approaching prewar levels, providing a huge boon to its wartime economy.
How did Ukraine pull off this improbable feat? Part of the explanation can be found in its use of potent anti-ship cruise missiles, including the domestically produced Neptune, which in 2022 sank the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. But Ukraine has also innovated brilliantly by developing its own unmanned surface vessels, which can hunt Russian warships in wolf packs.
Both the Magura V5 and the Sea Baby are essentially unmanned speedboats that can be packed with explosives or even fire their own missiles. They are equipped with cameras and satellite links that allow distant controllers to steer them toward their targets, they travel fast (up to 50 mph), and they are made of materials difficult to detect on radar. Best of all, they are cheap to produce and don’t put any Ukrainian personnel at risk. Drones costing only a few hundred thousand dollars are sinking multimillion-dollar warships that can take years to manufacture.
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