January 21, 2026: A month ago Ukraine used a new submarine version of their Sea Baby naval drone to attack a Russian Kilo Class submarine in the port of Novorossiisk on the east coast of the Black Sea. This was the first time a drone submarine attacked and crippled a manned submarine. The damaged Kilo will probably be written off because last February Russia shut down all ship repair activities in the Black Sea because of increasing Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. This includes the shipyards at Novorossiisk. The damaged Kilo cannot be taken to a submarine repair facility in northwest Russia because Turkey has a treaty allowing it to refuse warships in wartime access to Turkish-controlled waters that are the only exit from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. There is another damaged Kilo stranded in a Crimean shipyard. With its latest Kilo loss, Russia has no operational Kilos in the Black Sea.

The Black Sea Kilos were used to launch Kalibr cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine. Kalibrs launched from Russia are easier to detect and shoot down. The submerged Kilos launched Kalibrs from their torpedo tubes. The cruise missiles reached the surface, and their engines took the Kalibrs to targets anywhere along the Ukrainian Black Sea coast and hundreds of kilometers inland.

Meanwhile Ukraine continues to develop and build naval drones to enable Ukraine to make the Black Sea unusable by Russian commercial shipping as well as warships. The freighters and tankers can use the Turkish exit to the Mediterranean only if they survive Ukrainian naval and land-based drone attacks. In 2024 and most of 2025, Russia and Ukraine avoided attacking each other’s commercial shipping in the Black Sea. But with all the Kilos gone and surface warships withdrawn to Russian ports in the distant ports of the northeastern Black Sea, Ukraine is free to threaten Russian commercial shipping in the Black Sea. Ukraine already has armed commercial merchant raiders firing on Russian commercial shipping. The Russians can launch drones and missiles at Ukrainian Black Sea ports but cannot effectively attack commercial shipping in the Black Sea.

Ukraine continues to develop, build and use drones to continue their domination of the Black Sea. Last December Ukraine introduced its Magura V7 naval drone, which weighs about 1.2 tons and can carry 650 kg of weapons. Its operational range is a thousand kilometers. The V7 can also be equipped with an electricity generator, enabling it to stay at sea for up to seven days. This model can move at speeds of up to 72 kilometers an hour. Cruising speed is 43 kilometers an hour.

Ukrainian naval drones have revolutionized naval warfare that takes place within a few hundred kilometers of a coastline. So far no other navy has shown much interest in duplicating the Ukrainian success with naval drones. The U.S. Coast Guard has used naval drones to assist in interdicting drug smuggling boats. The U.S. Navy has access to Ukrainian naval drone technology and is paying attention because the Chinese are doing a lot of work on naval drones, including a ship described as a drone carrier, equipped with aerial and naval drones.

It all began in 2022 when the Russian Black Sea fleet dominated the Black Sea and threatened Ukrainian grain exports, which accounted for 41 percent of its export income. Most of these grain products went to Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ukraine needed to deal with the Black Sea Fleet and do it quickly. The initial problem was that Ukraine did not have much of a navy. They had some patrol boats, which were a nuisance, not an obstacle, to continued Russian control of the Black Sea.

When the current war started in 2022, the Russians happily attacked Ukrainian-flagged cargo ships carrying Ukrainian grain for export from the Black Sea for more than a year. This stopped sometime in 2023 after Ukrainian cruise missiles sank or disabled the Russian warships doing that, and both sides then exported grain through the Black Sea, plus some oil for the Russians. Eventually the Ukrainians developed surface water drones and then underwater drones capable of attacking all Russian ships in the Black Sea. Things then got interesting.

Ukraine first developed a secret weapon, the Magura naval surface drone, used about a hundred of these drones to defeat Russia’s Black Sea fleet. When the war started, the Magura V5 was just a concept, a preliminary design for a one ton 5.5 meter long naval drone. Magura initially used a fishing boat that had a solid waterproof cover added, along with batteries for propulsion. There were sensors and a compartment for 300 kg of explosives or weapons. These include a machine-gun protruding above the drone top while two Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles were in launch tubes, ready to be fired at Russian aircraft or helicopters. Magura has a substantial number of electronic components, including several day/night video cameras, that give the remote operator a view of what is around the drone. There is also an autopilot, so the remote operator does not have to personally maneuver the drone over long stretches of open water. Magura is equipped with contact fuses at the front of the boat

Most Magura missions are one-way, but those equipped with machine-guns and surface-to-air missiles are also used to attack Russian aircraft. In May a Magura V7 used those two missiles to shoot down two expensive Russian SU-30 jet fighters. This was the first time a naval drone had shot down warplanes. Earlier a Magura had used Ukrainian R-73 heat-seeking missiles to take down one Mi-8 helicopter and damage another.

The Ukrainian experience using naval drones to defeat the Russian Black Sea Fleet was unique. Ukraine had only surface-to-ship missiles when the war started, but eventually shifted to three new naval drones, Sea Baby, Mother, and MAGURA, or Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Apparatus.

Some of these naval drones were used for a mid-2023 Kerch Bridge attack. One of the drones varied 850 kg of explosives and inflicted enough damage to halt use of the bridge. The Mother drone carried 450 kg and MAGURA 320 kg. In addition to attacking targets, these drones can also be used for reconnaissance and surveillance using video cameras that broadcast what they see back to the drone operator. Some drones have been armed with small rocket launchers. The Mother drone has a range of over 700 kilometers and can operate on the high seas. Endurance is about 60 hours, and top speed is over 70 kilometers an hour. Mother was used for an attack on the Russian naval base at Novorossiysk, which is a thousand kilometers from Crimea.

Ukraine has been developing subsurface drones and in early 2023 the first one, the Toloka2 TK-150 was introduced. This drone was 2.5 meters long and equipped with a sensor mast that remained above the surface for navigation and to identify targets. Toloka2 can also carry a small explosive warhead. Later, Ukraine developed the larger Marichka drone that is six meters long and one meter in diameter. Ukraine sought a Western manufacturer to build and weaponize Ukrainian drones.

Ukrainian drones have been quite successful in attacking and sinking or disabling Russian navy ships. So far there have been over a dozen attacks which resulted in sinking or damaging about twenty ships.

Ukrainian drone operations in the Black Sea forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to withdraw to the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Sevastopol was no longer a safe place to be, and Russian ships could no longer launch their Kalibr cruise missiles without risking attack by Ukrainian drones. The presence and aggressive use of the drones meant that Ukraine’s grain corridor was kept open despite Russia’s threats to interfere. Beyond symbolic significance, the corridor holds critical economic importance for Ukraine and is expected to contribute up to seven percent to GDP growth in 2024 and even more in 2025 because of the grain shipments.

Russian countermeasures to Ukrainian naval drones included using aircraft and helicopters to destroy slow-moving drones before they attack and expanding use of jamming to disrupt drone control signals. These changes made it much more difficult for Ukrainian naval drones to reach and destroy targets. But by 2025 the Russians had already lost control of the Black Sea and were not getting it back.

This left Russian warships dependent on bases in the north, near the land border with Norway, and in the Far East, near Japanese and South Korean naval bases. In a post-Cold War development, the Japanese and South Korean fleets are now far larger than the Russian Far East fleet. Before the 1990s, the South Korea fleet was largely non-existent and the Japanese fleet tiny and purely defensive. Chinese naval power began to emerge by the late 1990s but took another decade to become a significant force. Then as now, the American western Pacific fleet was the major naval power in the region.

The lessons learned by American, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Ukrainian and Russian naval commanders is that these drones have changed the rules for naval warfare. If China tries to invade Taiwan, they have to prepare countermeasures for numerous naval drones blocking the way. Everyone continues to observe Black Sea operations for details on what new tactics, techniques and drone’s designs appear. The U.S. has an edge because they are a major supporter of Ukraine and are seeking to make the most of their insider knowledge of the Ukrainian naval drone effort.