Footage allegedly shows Russian ship launching missiles off Crimea – video The US Naval Institute (USNI) examined satellite images of the naval base in the port of Sevastopol and concluded that two dolphin pens were carried to the base in February at the start of the Moscow invasion of Ukraine. Russia has a history of training dolphins for military purposes, using the aquatic mammal to retrieve items or deter enemy divers. The Sevastopol naval base is vital to the Russian military, as it is located at the southern tip of the Crimea occupied by Moscow in 2014. According to USNI analysis, many of the Russian ships anchored there are out of range by missiles. , are potentially vulnerable to underwater attacks. Ukraine had also trained dolphins in an aquarium near Sevastopol in a program born of a Soviet-era design neglected in the 1990s. During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed the use of dolphins whose sound-sensing capabilities could enable them to detect underwater objects such as landmines. The US has spent at least $ 28 million to maintain its own troops of dolphins and sea lions – which are also trained – to help in any conflict. The Sevastopol program was revived in 2012 by the Ukrainian navy, but the mammals fell into Russian hands after the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Ukraine unsuccessfully demanded the return of the animals, and RIA Novosti reported that Moscow was planning to expand the program. “Our experts have developed new devices that convert dolphin sonar underwater target detection into a signal to the pilot’s screen. “The Ukrainian navy did not have the funds for such know-how and some projects had to be avoided,” a source told the Russian news agency. Two years later, the Russian Navy announced plans to purchase five more dolphins, launching a bidding process for a 1.75m-ruble contract – about $ 21,000 – to deliver dolphins to the Sevastopol base by the end of the summer. It is not clear whether the dolphins believed to be in Sevastopol today are the same ones that emerged from this contract. Satellite imagery from 2018 revealed that Russia also used dolphins at its naval base in Tartus, Syria, during the Syrian war. Dolphins are not the only creatures in the ocean that Russian soldiers may have trained. A beluga whale found off the coast of Norway in 2019 is believed to have been trained by the Russian Navy. Fishermen reported a beluga whale wearing strange belts, which may have been holding cameras, harassing their boats, pulling straps and ropes from the sides of boats.
