Satellite images show Russia is using trained dolphins to guard a naval base in the Black Sea, according to a report.
A U.S. Naval Institute report on Wednesday said the Russian Navy placed two dolphin pens at the entrance to Sevastopol harbor, off the coast of Crimea. Satellite images provided to the Washington Examiner by Maxar Technologies show the dolphin pens at the harbor’s entrance, which is being used as a naval base by Russian forces. The pens were placed there around the time of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, according to the report.
The Port of Sevastopol is Russia’s most significant naval base in the Black Sea, and the trained dolphins may have been placed at the harbor’s entrance to protect against underwater sabotage by Ukrainian special operations forces, according to the U.S. Naval Institute’s analysis.
A spokesman for Maxar Technologies told the Washington Examiner that he agreed with the analytic assessments made in the U.S. Naval Institute report.
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Satellite photos taken on April 7 by Maxar Technologies show the orange tops of the dolphin pens above water just inside the sea walls at the entrance to the sprawling harbor.
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, marine mammal military programs developed by the Soviet Navy during the Cold War, such as dolphin training, have been expanded, according to the report.
Beluga whales, seals, sea lions, and bottlenose dolphins have been trained by Russia for military use.
In 2019, a beluga whale believed to have once been a Russian military asset was spotted in Norway with a harness that said “Equipment St. Petersburg.”
It is unknown if Ukraine has undertaken any undersea military action against Russia’s navy, but Ukrainian officials claim to have destroyed the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet with missiles earlier this month.
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The ships at the Sevastopol naval base, however, would be out of range of known Ukrainian missiles.
Dolphins are “widely considered” by naval experts as an effective defense against attacks by dive teams, the report noted.
