Ukraine War

Ukraine News: Successful Attack by 3 USVs on Russian Warship?

Reports differ by 180⁰ — but what would you expect?

Russian media is showing a video which supposedly shows a Ukrainian unmanned surface vessel (USV, or kamikaze drone boat) being blown out of the water in an attempted attack on the Russian warship Ivan Khurs.

The Ivan Khurs is a 4,000 ton Yuriy Ivanov class Russian SIGINT intelligence collection ship with a range of 8,000 miles (13,000 km). Its armament consists of light anti-aircraft weapons. The ship was commissioned in 2018 and is considerably superior to similar vessels of previous generations mainly due to the versatility and high level of automation and systems integration.

The Russian Defence Ministry, in a statement posted on Telegram, said the warship had been protecting the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines. These pipelines carry gas from Russia to Turkey, partly across the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian view of the attack is quite different.

Latest:

Photo of the Ivan Khurs recoinnasance ship entering Sevastopol without outside help after the attack by Ukrainian USVs.

The ship is moving independently and there is no noticeable damage on it. If the explosion of the boat occurred near the side, then it did not cause any significant damage.

The picture is taken from the starboard side of the ship. but the Ukrainian video appears to show the drone hitting the port side aft, so we would be unable to see any port side damage in the Sevastopol photo.

Nevertheless, looking at timings, the ship has probably travelled 200 miles or so from her assumed patrol area to Sevastopol in 24–30 hours, so she cannot be seriously disabled.

Ukrainian USVs

Ukraine might have several designs, but this one was photographed in 2022.

For the attack in question, the USVs would need a relatively substantial (but not impossible) fuel load to travel 200 miles at 30 knots. Without detection too.

These are powerful weapons, the modern-day equivalent of fire ships.

Analysis

The BBC is trying to geolocate the video of the attack but it’s certain that US and UK surveillance drones over the Black Sea will have known precisely where the ship was. I wonder if the drones could detect the USVs?

The USVs may be stealthy vessels, but they leave a wake at 30 knots which could be visible, depending on sea conditions. The sea looks very calm in the video. Although the USVs are small, they are black in colour which would stand out against a blue (?) sea. Hot engine exhaust gases would emit IR, but could well be mixed in with engine cooling water making IR detection more difficult. I doubt that Russian satellites could detect them, if indeed they are tasked to watch the Black Sea.

If the Ivan Khurs really was attacked by USVs near the Bosphorus then that will be a very worrying development for Russia.

The Bosphorus is 300 nautical miles from the nearest Ukrainian territory, and that means that Russian ships could be at risk from Ukrainian USVs almost anywhere in the Black Sea.

Ukraine does not have a submarine since Russia seized the only one during the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Nor does it have deep dive support vessels.

The Black Sea (unlike the Baltic) is very deep, with much of it over 2,000 metres. Therefore there is no risk of Ukrainian divers attaching explosives to the pipeline except where the pipes are near to the coast — as they approach Turkey.

That is where the threat from Ukrainian divers would be, and probably where the Ivan Khurs was operating.

Here’s a closeup from my nautical chart — depths in metres.

You can see that depths are 1500m + up to 20 miles off the coast (Turkey’s maritime border extends out 12 nautical miles from the coast). It’s likely that the Turkish navy would have patrol boats in the area as well as the Russian ship, so I can’t imagine that Ukraine would attempt underwater sabotage of the pipeline that close to Turkey’s coastline, even if they had the capability.

The key point for me is that it’s almost certain that one USV got through to the ship. The fact that it failed to detonate is not as important as the operational range of 200 miles+ (if correct) at which the Ivan Khurs was targeted and that these USVs were undetected until close in to their targets.

Nevertheless, the Russian ship’s crew were able to stop two of them, and that’s good shooting. Two out of three ain’t bad, but…

A nasty fright for Russia.

How will it affect their naval operations in future?

Does Russia have lookdown assets over the Black Sea, or are they all tasked over Ukraine?

Ukraine delivers a surprise every day.

Here’s an earlier video of the Ivan Khurs, Russia’s latest hi-tech SIGINT ship, so nearly converted to a submarine.

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