Featured Image Credit: Alamy/H I Sutton/Twitter
Topics: Russia, Ukraine, World News, Animals
Abbi Murray
Topics: Russia, Ukraine, World News, Animals
The Russian Navy is training dolphins to protect a naval base in the Black Sea, an expert has reported.
Satellite imagery shows two dolphin pens stationed at the entrance to Sevastopol harbour, sheltered just inside a sea wall.
The Russian Navy supposedly placed them there back in February, around the start of the invasion in Ukraine.
Sevastopol is the most significant Russian naval base in the Black Sea, and author and defence analyst H I Sutton writes for USNI News that they could be using trained dolphins to defend the base from underwater sabotage.
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In the past, marine mammals have been trained for counter-diver operations by both the US and Russia.
According to the satellite photos, many high-value Russian navy ships are arranged inside the port, making them vulnerable to undersea sabotage.
So, Russia’s trained dolphins could prevent Ukrainian forces from infiltrating the harbour underwater by sabotaging enemy warships.
This is not the first time the Russian Navy has developed marine mammal programmes to aid them militarily.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy conducted dolphin training at the Kazachya Bukhta unit near Sevastopol, where it remains today.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unit was transferred to the Ukrainian military, before coming under Russian Navy control during the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Since then, Russia’s marine mammal programmes have massively expanded, with beluga whales and seals also being used.
Beluga whale pens were stationed at Olenya Guba, a secretive naval base housing the intelligence organisation largely believed to be responsible for key Russian undersea espionage missions.
In April 2019, a trained beluga whale found itself lost in Norway. The event quickly attracted media attention as belugas are rarely seen that far south of the Arctic, and the whale also had a harness wrapped around its body.
The beluga was nicknamed ‘Hvaldimir’ by locals and it was largely thought to be an escapee from the Russian Navy programme, as reported by the BBC.
And that wasn’t the only time Russia was suspected for training marine mammals.
During 2018, further satellite images appeared to show another dolphin pen stationed at a Russian naval base, this time in Tartus, Syria.
As reported by Forbes, the dolphins were thought to be from the Sevastopol base, and were transferred to Tartus to aid in the war in Syria.
Increasing evidence suggests Russia uses trained marine mammals to aid them in their military pursuits, making it likely that dolphins are being used in their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
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