Russia Deploys Combat Dolphins to Black Sea Frontline

Russia has deployed its specially trained combat dolphins closer to the height of the fighting in southern Ukraine, according to a new report, in a move expanding Moscow's use of the animals in the Black Sea.

Dolphin enclosures have popped up at a Russian naval base in Novoozerne, not far from the western Crimean city of Yevpatoriya, Naval News reported in October, citing new images.

Combat dolphins are not a new phenomenon in the Ukraine war. Reports have long suggested Russia has trained and used military animals around its Black Sea base at Sevastopol, the Crimean port city, to fend off Ukrainian special forces, and the U.S. Navy has also used dolphins for many decades.

The U.S. Naval Institute said in the early weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russian forces in Sevastopol had put two "dolphin pens" at the opening to the harbor, appearing around February 2022.

Novoozerne is north of Sevastopol, and closer to southern mainland Ukraine, where some of the heaviest fighting is raging, than Russia's main Black Sea base. It sits just north of Yevpatoriya, on which Ukraine has zeroed in recent months.

Ukraine has vowed to retake Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and has used as a springboard to fight Kyiv's forces in the past 20 months of the all-out war.

The deployment of military dolphins in Novoozerne is likely intended to "defend against Ukrainian special forces who present a real threat in the area," NavalNews reported.

The pens appeared in western Crimea around August this year, the outlet added.

Throughout Ukraine's summer season, Kyiv upped its attacks on Russian targets in Crimea, including on advanced Russian air defense systems near Yevpatoriya. This coincided with an amphibious assault by Ukrainian forces on the peninsula, followed by a long-range missile strike on Sevastopol that damaged a Russian landing ship and one of Moscow's submarines.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

In late June, the British Defense Ministry said Russia had invested in "major enhancements" to its Sevastopol base, including "an increased number of trained marine mammals." Images of the base show a "near doubling of floating mammal pens," which likely contained bottle-nosed dolphins, the U.K. government said in an intelligence update.

Russia has trained a host of animals for a wide variety of missions, the British government said, adding the Crimea-based dolphins were intended to fend off enemy divers. In Russian Arctic waters, Moscow's forces have also used Beluga whales and seals, the U.K. Defense Ministry added.

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