Why are dolphins deployed by Russia to protect an important base in the middle of the war with Ukraine?

Recent satellite images reveal that Russia is secretly deploying trained dolphins to guard an important Russian naval base on the Black Sea. So why do the Russians use marine animals for this important task?

Russian dolphin training program

After reviewing satellite images of Sevastopol - an important port in the Crimean island, the US Naval Institute assessed that Moscow deployed trained dolphins to guard one of its naval bases in the Crimea. Black Sea from potential attacks from Ukraine.

Satellite images are said to help detect the deployment of dolphins by Russia to protect the Sevastopol naval base in the Black Sea.

Submarine analyst HI Sutton said the two dolphinariums may have been shipped to the port of Sevastopol in February, the same month Russia launched a special operation into Ukraine.

According to the Moscow Times, Russia has been training marine mammals since Soviet times. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union used the port of Sevastopol as a base to train dolphins and whales to engage in activities such as searching for mines and placing explosives, and it is also believed that the Soviets trained them. these sea creatures to destroy underwater targets.

However, the program was said to have been "forgotten" when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. In 2012, Russia denied a report that it was developing a military training program for fish. Pig attacks enemy divers with head-mounted weapons.

A trainer works with a dolphin that once belonged to the Soviet Navy at the military port of Sevastopol.

Before Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the aquarium in Sevastopol - then still in Ukraine - trained dolphins to swim with children with special needs and was used in various psychotherapy sessions. .

However, after Russia annexed Crimea, including Sevastopol, an employee at the aquarium told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency that the dolphins and seals were once again receiving military training.

This person also added that engineers are working to develop a program to train marine mammals to search for submerged objects and enemy divers using the system. contact sonar.

In 2019, Viktor Baranets, a Russian colonel, confirmed to a state television station that: "We train military dolphins for combat roles, we do not cover it up. In Sevastopol, we have a military center that trains dolphins to tackle a variety of tasks, from analyzing the seabed to protecting a body of water, destroying foreign divers, attaching mines to foreign ships' hulls. .

Which countries train marine animals for military purposes?

A bottlenose dolphin jumps out of the water during mine clearance training in the Arabian Gulf in 2003.

There are two known military dolphin training facilities in the world, one at Sevastopol and the other at the US Naval Information Warfare Center in San Diego. The US Navy has trained dolphins and sea lions since the Vietnam War.

In 1969, a project called Project Deep Ops was started in which 2 killer whales and a pilot whale were trained to retrieve sunken objects in the ocean that machines and divers could not afford. inaccessible. Animals such as California sea lions and bottlenose dolphins have been used to detect seabed mines.

Why dolphins, sea lions or whales?

A Ukrainian military diver trains marine mammals in the Crimean peninsula in 1992.

There are several reasons why marine mammals such as dolphins, sea lions and whales are used for military purposes.

Due to their ultrasonic communication systems and the ability to dive deep, these animals are far more efficient than any modern technology.

"It's not surprising that President Putin and many people think that dolphins are weapons of war," Andrew Lambert, professor of naval history at King's College London, commented on NBC News.

Dolphins deployed by Russia in Sevastopol, according to analyst HI Sutton, are probably used to prevent hostile divers from entering harbors and sabotaging Russian warships.

Sevastopol is the most important naval base of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea. Dolphins could be tasked with preventing Ukrainian special forces from entering the harbor from the water to sabotage warships.

Inside the port, many high-value Russian Navy ships are positioned out of range of Ukrainian missiles but vulnerable to sabotage from the seabed.

"That's their world, they'll find you underwater very, very quickly," explains Professor Lambert.