The Security Service of Ukraine recently presented an interesting gift to the Museum of Ukrainian History in World War II. Namely, a Sea Baby naval drone damaged during a combat mission, which is to become one of the most interesting exhibits in the museum.
According to the SSU press service, this particular drone successfully completed several tasks and traveled more than 4,000 kilometers across the Black Sea in total, each time successfully returning to its base — i.e. completed at least four combat sorties beyond it's declared maximum operating range of 1,000 km.
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During the transfer ceremony, Brigadier General of the SBU's military counterintelligence, Ivan Lukashevych, noted that this Sea Baby became the first USV in the history of Ukraine to complete a mission while acting as a drone carrier. The mission was to attack the Kacha airfield near Sevastopol in russian-occupied Crimea, targeting russian helicopters.
Lukashevych specified that this mission took place "last year," that is, in 2024. The only publicly known attack on the Kacha airfield matching that description, however, took place in May 2023, and it reportedly resulted in damage to russian Mi-8 helicopters.
The Security Service also said several new technical solutions were tested on this drone, some of which laid the groundwork for Operation Spider Web — a massive devastating raid on russian strategic aviation claiming 34% of all long-range aircraft fleet of russia.
Earlier, SSU officials noted that preparations for this special operation began in 2023, coinciding with the attack on the Kacha airfield. Possibly, some tactical elements of future Operation Spider Web were tested out there, even before its official start. For a reminder, this elaborate special operation involved remote launching of a large number of drones from specially designed pads disguised as wooden sheds and mounted on flatbed trucks.
In other words, Spider Web was preceded by at least this mini-version of the operation. General Lukashevych did not mention any of the specific elements practiced during those preparatory sorties but Defense Express can carefully assume it involved testing of the ability to control an FPV drone from a considerable distance in combat conditions. As we analyzed previously, there were many factors that could have made the entire mission go wrong any moment: from strong wind to signal delay.
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