On Friday, May 26, a video appeared in the public domain, which confirms the fact that kamikaze unmanned surface vehicle (USV) hit the Ivan Khurs (Project 18280) reconnaissance ship of the Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation during the attack, which became known on May 24, 2023.
It is important that for Western analysts until this moment there was no doubt that the attack on the Ivan Khurs was successful. A publication by the Naval News portal, which was published on the morning of May 26, is indicative here.
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"The attempted attack is a clear sign of the paradigm shift in naval warfare, and no place is safe from kamikaze USV attacks.," the author of this article concludes.
The attack by Ukrainian kamikaze USV on the russian Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship can be called more than just successful. The very fact that this ship was hit at a distance of 400 km from the Ukrainian coast and approximately 140 km from the Bosphorus Strait means, in particular, that the ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the russian federation now have no safe place in the Black Sea where they could hide from a potential attack by Ukrainian striking drones.
It seems that Ukrainian kamikaze USV have undergone a certain evolution. In particular, the power of the explosion, which can be estimated on the videos distributed on the network, may indicate that the mass of the explosive on these boats was significantly increased.
It also seems that the reliability of the control was significantly improved, which made it possible to keep the stability of the movement and hit the ship's hull at a distance of 400 km from the coast, where the signal could be lost - including, due to the countermeasures of the russian electronic warfare equipment. The power plant and power elements could also undergo significant refinement, because otherwise Ukrainian maritime drones would not be able to travel such a long distance in the open sea.
Finnaly, all this could mean a paradigm shift in Ukraine's naval war against Russia, as the author of the article in Naval News says.
The lies from the Ministry of Defense of the russian federation, which tried to lie not only about the real results of the attack on the Ivan Hurs reconnaissance ship, but also in the explanations of what this ship was doing only 140 km from the Bosphorus Strait, are indicative. Racists claimed that the Ivan Hurs in this area was allegedly defending the underwater gas pipelines the Blue Stream and the Turkish Stream in the exclusive economic zone of Turkey. At the same time, we can’t find clarifying whether Ankara itself asked for such a "protection" or not.
But there are at least two "buts" here. First, the Ivan Khurs doesn’t have underwater detection systems or ROVs to monitor the pipelines. Even if it had, there are no weapons on this ship that would prevent or interrupt a probable attack on the underwater gas tunnels, if it really could take place.
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