Yesterday, February 11, 2023, there were reasons to believe that the russians could begin using kamikaze surface drones to attack critical infrastructure or counter civilian shipping in the Black Sea.
This is particularly indicated by one of the fragments of the message of the conversation between the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, General Mark Milley. "I shared my concern about russia's use of unmanned surface vehicles, which poses a threat to civilian maritime shipping in the Black Sea," the message reads.
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At first glance, the algorithm for countering the new threat from the russian federation is simple and clear - defensive booms around important objects that block ways to the objects should be placed on as well as more patrol boats and ships around.
But on the other hand, here it is also worth understanding where russia could get kamikaze boats. Perhaps this will "prompt" the algorithms of electronic warfare, which will help to "silence" such russia’s means even on long approaches to critically important objects of Ukraine.
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the russian federation had at its disposal some samples of Western UUV.
More specifically, the russian Navy has six "glass-plastic" of Project 12700 Alexandrit-class minesweepers, three of which are part of the Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation, and each of which is equipped with four French-made Alister 9 and K-Ster autonomous underwater vehicles. But most likely, the russians could only use such drones to "copy" control technologies for unmanned underwater vehicles.
Therefore, as a possible supplier of kamikaze boats for the russian federation, it is Iran that comes to mind. This country from time to time demonstrates similar developments. In particular, the Iranians recently showed a surface drone called Bavar, the characteristics of which are currently unknown.
In addition, it is also known that Tehran has already supplied kamikaze boats for its satellites - the Yemeni Houthis - to destroy surface targets. Some of their characteristics were described by OSINT analyst H I Sutton in his blog back in September 2022.
In his opinion, Iranian kamikaze boats have a hull length of up to 10 meters. A conventional outboard motor is used as a power plant on this boat. Depending on the series, either ordinary motor boats or specially made hulls could be used for production.
Also, on these vehicles you can see a cabin for a combat swimmer who has to bring his boat to a certain point, which will then head to the target "in unmanned mode".
The weight of warheads and the range of these Iranian kamikaze boats are still unknown. But in general, according to the description, something similar to the "human torpedo" used by the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS for commando style operations during the Second World War comes out.
It will be possible to give an accurate assessment of a possible new russian "wunderwaffe" only if one of the samples falls into the hands of Ukrainian specialists.
For now, one can only hope that the russian federation will not receive enough weapons from Iran to allow Russian terrorists to attack Ukrainian shipping and critical infrastructure in seaports or inland waterways.
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