Some ten robot boats. Five hundred Russian air sorties. One very lopsided hunt
Missions that once took a night now stretch to five days, and Russia keeps its fleet hidden, a naval drone unit commander says.
Russia engaged in hundreds of air sorties against a small group of Ukrainian sea drones, known as the Group 13, reported ArmyInform. The Ukrainian military-intelligence unit, led by its commander Thirteenth, has been struggling to find Russian warships to attack. Now, they target land objectives from the sea using their robot boats. The Black Sea was once a commanding naval domain for Russia, but now, it is a battlefield contested by cheap, expendable machines - the Magura sea drones.
The commander noted that more than 500 aircraft sorties were flown against the group of eight to ten Magura drones. Moscow invested more in locating the drones than the entire mission cost. The duration of missions has also increased, with what once took a day now taking three, four, or even five days. The commander categorized the unit's evolution into three stages: sea victory, the end of Russian air dominance over the water, and now, land strikes from the sea.
Today, the targets are no longer ships and what remains is harder to reach. A struck S-400 air-defense system does not yield the same results as a sunk warship. The financial burden on Russia is immense, with the cost not just limited to destroyed hardware but also includes the pensions for the killed sailors, training that has been written off, and the strategic disruption to Russia's supply lines. The commander views the unit as revolutionaries, drawing parallels to the first tanks more than a century ago.
Written by urgent.news from Euromaidan Press's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
