Tactics help Ukraine sink Russian warship

The Ukrainian army deployed many suicide boats to attack Russian warships at night, making it difficult for the enemy to respond and causing great losses.

On February 14, the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate announced that it had coordinated with other forces to use suicide boats to attack and sink the large landing ship Caesar Kunikov of the Black Sea Fleet in the waters near the city of Alupka, Crimea.

The attack on the landing ship Caesar Kunikov revealed the attack tactic using the Sea Baby unmanned suicide boat (USV) that Ukraine has recently used, after many months of perfecting this remote-controlled attack weapon.

The Ukrainian Navy first deployed Sea Baby suicide boats in late 2022, when a group of satellite-controlled, explosive-laden USVs attacked Russia's Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol, Crimea, but did not cause major damage.

"It took Ukraine nearly a year to perfect the USV and suicide boat assault tactics," Forbes editor David Axe said. "Once completed, Ukrainian forces began sinking many enemy warships."

Gunny, a British maritime expert, said that during the attack on the landing ship Caesar Kunikov, Ukraine sent a suicide boat to approach the Russian warship from the starboard side, and a second boat approached the port side. The third suicide boat was farther away, monitoring the attacks of the other two boats through an infrared camera.

Ukraine's suicide boat tactics to attack Russian warships — A Ukrainian suicide boat approached a warship believed to be the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov on February 14. Video : *Ukrainian Ministry of Defense*

"The Sea Baby suicide boats are more than 5 meters long, but have a low hull, making them difficult to detect by radar, infrared sensors or the naked eye when moving on the sea surface. They are also not very noisy when operating," said Axe. "Ukraine often attacks at night, when the Russian sailors guarding the warships are least alert."

Video taken by the Sea Baby suicide boat shows at least one Russian sailor standing guard on the deck of the amphibious assault ship Caesar Kunikov, but apparently did not notice the approaching USV. The first Sea Baby rammed into the starboard side of the Caesar Kunikov, near the main engine room.

This attack could have flooded the Caesar Kunikov's engine and vehicle compartments. The second USV would have hit the port side to "decide the fate of the ship," Axe said.

Ukraine claims to have sunk two Project 775 landing ships, including the Caesar Kunikov, and the Project 12411 frigate Ivanovets, along with several other Russian naval assets since increasing suicide boat attacks in August 2023.

Western experts say Ukraine is having difficulty stopping Russian forces on the ground, but is causing significant damage to the enemy in the Black Sea.

This is considered a very impressive achievement, as the Ukrainian navy almost ceased to exist after they sank the flagship Hetman Sahaidachny, which was a Project 1135 Burevestnik-class frigate, in March 2022.

With no large warships left, the Ukrainian navy has been forced to use cruise missiles and USVs to attack the enemy. Operations with suicide boats have made Ukraine the first country to effectively deploy them in naval warfare.

A suicide boat of the Ukrainian army. Photo: Ukrainian Ministry of Defense — A suicide boat of the Ukrainian army. Photo: *Ukrainian Ministry of Defense*

USVs are relatively cheap and unmanned, controlled remotely via satellite link. If just one USV manages to get past the defenses and launch an attack, it could cause major damage to Russian naval forces.

“This gives Ukraine a huge asymmetric advantage,” said Basil Germond, an international security expert at Lancaster University in the UK.

The USV's range also far exceeds many of the cruise missiles Ukraine possesses, and the country is rapidly improving them, including by equipping the vehicle with rocket launchers. In addition, USVs are significantly cheaper than missiles.

The Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles provided by the UK and France have a range of about 300 km and are very expensive, up to 2.5 million USD each, forcing Ukraine to save them. In the September 2023 attack, the Ukrainian Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles damaged a Russian submarine in dry dock at the shipyard.

"Ukraine has had great success in its raids on the Black Sea Fleet, forcing Russia to move its assets further away from the front line," Germond said. "This has both symbolic and operational significance."

However, many experts admit that the achievements of Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea are not a solution to their land campaign, which has fallen into a stalemate after a failed large-scale counterattack last year.

The daring naval raids cannot guarantee victory for Ukraine, but they play an important role in maintaining pressure on Russia.

The situation of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Graphics: WP

Despite Russia having to move some of its warships from Sevastopol to ports with less-developed infrastructure in eastern Crimea and Novorossiysk, Ukraine's suicide boat attacks did not deal a serious blow to the enemy.

The British Ministry of Defense assessed that the Russian navy "is almost certainly still able to carry out three main operations in the Black Sea: long-range strikes, patrols and support".

According to Sidharth Kaushal, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the UK, Russia could use mine-laying aircraft instead of surface vehicles and launch long-range cruise missiles to continue attacking Ukraine. However, Russia is having difficulty in blocking the flow of goods from Ukraine's Black Sea ports.

Ukraine's suicide boat raids also eroded the Black Sea Fleet as Russia was unable to replenish its warships due to restrictions under the 1936 Montreux Convention. When the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out, Türkiye invoked the convention and blocked naval vessels of the belligerents from passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to enter the Black Sea.

Nguyen Tien (According to Forbes, BI, AFP, Reuters )

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