First ever underwater drone strike on Russian submarine carried out by Ukraine in Black Sea

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has claimed that a Sub Sea Baby underwater drone has destroyed a Russian submarine “for the first time in history”, it said on Monday.

The SBU did not say exactly when the joint operation with the Ukrainian Navy against the Russian Kilo-class attack submarine was carried out, but said that the vessel was in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk with four Kalibr cruise missile launchers on board and that the explosion had caused “critical damage” to the submarine, effectively incapacitating it.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet subsequently acknowledged the attack in Novorossiysk, though its press service said that “no ship or submarine had been damaged”. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, Ukrainian claims to have destroyed one of its submarines did not “reflect reality”.

The ministry said that “the enemy’s attempt to conduct sabotage with the help of an underwater unmanned vehicle did not achieve its goal”, adding that “no Black Sea Fleet ships or submarines stationed in the bay of the Novorossiysk Naval Base, or their crews, had suffered damaged” in Ukrainian sabotage operations, and that all were in normal working order.

The SBU said in late October that its Sea Baby drones, multi-purpose unmanned naval drones that operate on the surface of the water, had been successfully used to strike 11 Russian ships, including frigates and missile carriers. It was this, the SBU claimed, that forced Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to begin relocating its headquarters from Sevastopol, in annexed Crimea, to the Russian port of Novorossiysk in late 2023.