Russia's Black Sea Fleet Anticipates Sabotage by Deploying Dolphin Troops
Apart from the threat of attack from sea drones (kamikaze), Russia's Black Sea Fleet now has to work extra hard to protect the assets in the port of Sevastopol.
Why not? The existence of frogmen (scuba divers) from Ukraine is a threat to be reckoned with because underwater sabotage can cause serious losses to the Russian Navy.
Related to the anticipation of infiltration from Ukrainian frogmen, the Russian Navy is said to have strengthened its anti-diving dolphin squad.
According to a report issued on June 23, 2023, by the UK Defense Intelligence Agency, Russia is improving security at the Port of Sevastopol by strengthening the number of dolphin rangers who are trained to detect and counter any underwater attacks.
Quoted from divernet.com (26/6/2023), it is stated that the Russian Navy has invested heavily in enhancing the security of its Black Sea base in the occupied Crimea since the summer of 2022, especially in recent weeks following the incessant counterattack from Ukraine.
The UK Defense Intelligence Agency has aerial photographs from the Sevastopol base showing almost doubling (allegedly) floating mammal enclosures considered "highly likely" to house trained bottlenose dolphins.
Enhanced defense also includes at least four layers of netting and buttresses at the harbor entrance.
In Arctic waters, the Russian Navy is also known to use beluga whales and seals for military purposes.
These marine mammals are trained for a variety of missions besides fighting enemy divers.
Ukraine's counteroffensive has targeted infrastructure near Crimea in pursuit of its goal of returning all Russian-occupied land to its control.
In this regard, Russia's Black Sea Fleet is the main target of Ukrainian special forces or drone attacks.
Since the Soviet Union, trained marine mammals had been stationed at Sevastopol until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Then the program was quietly continued by the Ukrainian navy.
On the other hand, Russia also did the same thing, especially after occupying Crimea in 2014.
Russia even deployed trained dolphins in Tartus, Syria, the following year.
The practice of bringing marine mammals into the military is not unique to Russia; the US Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions as teammates for sailors and marines since 1959 and deployed them during the Vietnam War.
The program for using marine mammals to deal with underwater threats is based on the Pacific coast, where there is the Point Loma military base in San Diego.
The US has always denied training dolphins to kill, and some experts have described the "dolphin warrior" as unreliable.
However, naval historian Prof. Andrew Lambert of King's College London says that because dolphins are so well adapted to hunting underwater, they are "ideal for killing human divers... quick, clever, and strong... Any diver in harbor at night will become targets."
