Russia deploys trained dolphins at Black Sea naval base, satellite images show

Close-up view of dolphin pens and entrance to Sevastopol Bay. Maxar Technologies

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Military dolphins are being used to protect a Black Sea Russian naval base, the US Naval Institute (USNI) has learnt.

Satellite images show two dolphin pens at the entrance to Sevastopol harbour — an important port for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The pens appear to have been placed there in February about the time that the war started, USNI reported.

Sevastopol is home to the Russian navy’s most significant Black Sea base.

It is believed the mammals are being used in anti-dive operations — a role in which they have previously been employed by both the Russian and US navies — to prevent Ukrainian divers from sneaking into the harbour.

“This could prevent Ukrainian special operations forces from infiltrating the harbour underwater to sabotage warships,” said a USNI News report.

Sevastopol is home to many high-value Russian Navy ships, which are out of range of Ukrainian missiles but vulnerable to undersea sabotage, a USNI analysis of satellite images found.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Navy developed several marine mammal programmes.

“Our specialists developed new devices that convert dolphins’ underwater sonar detection of targets into a signal to the operator’s monitor. The Ukrainian navy lacked funds for such know-how and some projects had to be mothballed,” one source told the Russian RIA news agency.

Russia took control of Sevastopol when it annexed Crimea in 2014, continuing the work the Soviet Union began there nearly 50 years ago.

Sevastopol was also the home port of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet, which was sunk by Ukrainian forces.

Despite its flagship status, the Moskva was old, having been commissioned during the Soviet era in 1983, and had several maintenance upgrades cancelled.

Russia's navy has launched cruise missiles into Ukraine and its activities in the Black Sea are crucial to supporting land operations in the south of the country, where on Friday it said it had “liberated” the port of Mariupol.