Ukraine claims to have damaged or destroyed a Russian Kilo-class submarine while in the port of Novorossiysk using a subsea drone.
If confirmed, Russia’s last major naval base would be vulnerable to air, surface, and now subsea attacks…not a great look. Russia’s Black Sea naval operations would likely collapse within a year.
But let’s not overstate the power of the subsea drones. While they may be effective for anti-port applications like this one, they won’t be replacing traditional naval warfare tools like torpedoes anytime soon.
Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from Colorado. Quick one today. The news is that in the last couple of weeks, the Ukrainian government has announced that they have used a new type of drone, a subsea drone, to attack and destroy a Russian submarine, a kilo class in the Russian port of Novorossiysk. the reason I’ve waited so long to comment on this is because the details were vague.
The Russians have denied that the Russians deny everything and the Ukrainians haven’t provided a lot of evidence. We do have satellite photos now that indicate there was damage on the inside of the port. Whether or not a submarine was hit or sunk is unclear. I would note that if you put a reasonably sized bomb on the outside of a submarine, that submarine is not going to go underwater.
Or if it does go under water, it will never come back up again. So it doesn’t take much damage to take one of these out for the long term. And the Russians no longer have the capacity to refit them, because that equipment is in Crimea, and Crimea is under regular air drone assault. So if this kilo class sub was even mildly damaged, it’s it’s out.
A couple things to keep in mind, however. Number one, on the Ukrainian side. The fact that a sea attack happened in November is extraordinarily bad for the Russians. It was one thing when they lost the ability to base their navy out of the Crimea. So they moved back to overseas because it was out of range of air attacks. Then air attacks started, happened regularly earlier this year. Now we not just have a sea attack, but a sub sea attack.
There are any number of ways that that might have happened. Maybe there was a mothership involved. Maybe it was smuggled into Russia proper, and then the thing was dropped in the water and sent on. But the bottom line is, is that the targeting suite of these drones is very limited. And if it goes underwater, it’s not receiving signals from anyone else unless it’s on a tether.
And if it’s on a fiber optic tether, you’d have to have another ship nearby, which it’s really stretches the imagination to think that the Russians would be that unaware of things going on in their own immediate waters. Which means that if this is true, what happened was that the sub was at dock when it happened. We do see damage to the dock.
We do see damage to the booms. And if this is a fundamentally new weapon from the Ukrainians, they’re calling it a sub sea baby. The sea baby is there. Surface drones, then overseas has become completely untenable for any sort of Russian naval or maritime activity. Remember that this is the Russians largest port in the area. It’s their primary oil export point.
It’s already been hit a couple of times, and it is now the headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet, which means they’ll have to move down the coast to a place called Tusa, which doesn’t have nearly the, cap capability. So we really are talking about the functional end of the entire Russian Sea Fleet within the next 12 months, if this is true.
Second, other side of the equation, I wouldn’t get too excited about subsea drones, because we don’t have meaningful guidance or decision trees on naval drones at this point. This is much less useful than a modern day torpedo. It would have to be dropped off relatively close to where it’s going. It can’t track an active signature. It can only go to a preprogramed fixed point.
That doesn’t mean it’s a nothing burger, because anything that can get around detection is something that Ukrainians or really anyone who’s involved in a naval conflict is going to want. But it is not an at sea weapon. It is an anti port weapon. So that is of significance. But in modern naval warfare, it is certainly not a game changer in its current form.
