By Galina Korol | 2024-05-23

KYIV -- Ukraine's Magura V5, an unmanned sea drone, is proving to be an adversary to be reckoned with in the Black Sea.

Developers highlight the lethal miniature boat's affordability and its ability to launch from any remote location.

The Ukrainian company SpetsTechnoExport unveiled the Magura V5 last July during the International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul.

The new-generation Magura V5 can perform a broad range of tasks: surveillance, reconnaissance, patrolling, search and rescue, mine countermeasures, maritime security and combat missions.

Compact, fast and dangerous

"What's distinctive about the Magura V5 is that it brings together the modern know-how of remote satellite connections, stealth action and the element of surprise," Ukrainian naval Capt. 1st Rank (ret.) Volodymyr Zablotsky, a naval correspondent for Defense Express, told Kontur.

The Magura V5's hydrodynamic frame helps it move stealthily, and the drone has a range of up to 800km.

Measuring just 5.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, it has superior maneuver capabilities. The mini-boat's height above the waterline is just 50cm.

"This means that you can't see it on radar screens, and it can appear with no warning in places where no one is expecting," Zablotsky said. "That's very important because it is often a component of the search-and-attack system ... [which] combines reconnaissance equipment, explosives-delivery equipment, which is the drone itself, and the destructive part -- that is, the explosives contained in the nose of the drone."

In addition, this drone can reach a speed of 42 knots and has a maximum payload of 320kg.

"These kinds of craft are usually launched in the ocean by five-unit attack groups, and one by one they surround the target that is under attack and strike from different directions to disperse fire," Zablotsky said.

The Magura V5 is affordable for Ukrainian forces.

"The entire system costs around $273,000, which is small potatoes," Zablotsky said. "If you estimate the cost of a [Russian] large landing ship at $65 million, you can do the math and see that this is an economically profitable action and you need to keep doing it."

Threat to Russian ships

Russia finds it difficult to ward off the Magura V5 because seaborne kamikaze drones usually seek their targets at night, analysts say.

"It's hard for the adversary to track them, and helicopters rarely manage to intercept them," said Alexander Kovalenko of Odesa, a military and political correspondent for the website InfoResist.

"At first glance it would seem that attack helicopters would be the most effective tool of interception in this case, but there is a caveat," he told Kontur.

The Russians' Mi-28 helicopter "has many problems when it's used at night" -- the preferred time for the Magura V5 to strike, he noted.

Thanks to the effective use of Magura V5 drones, Ukrainian forces have caused more than $500 million in losses to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, Fakty reported May 10, citing Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence.

The $500 million figure cited by Yusov "is the price of the destroyed and damaged combat ships," said Maksym Palamarchuk, director of the Center for Foreign Policy Research at the National Institute for Strategic Studies.

For the first time in history, Ukraine has demonstrated that a drone can wreck an enemy vessel, he told Kontur.

"Moreover, this was demonstrated several times in a row and on different types of ships, including a missile boat, a landing ship and a patrol ship," Palamarchuk said.

To date, Magura V5 drones have destroyed the Ivanovets, a missile boat; the Caesar Kunikov, a large landing ship; the Sergey Kotov, a patrol ship; one Akala-class ship and one Serna-class ship. In addition, these drones damaged a ship called the Ivan Khurs.

Most recently, on May 6, a Magura V5 operated by Ukrainian military intelligence destroyed a Mangust-class Russian high-speed vessel in Vuzka (Uzkaya) Bay, temporarily occupied Crimea. Its estimated worth was $3 million.

Ukrainian naval innovation

Thanks to these "surface kamikazes," the Russians "have lost control over the Black Sea, they've lost the ability to threaten a landing in Odesa and Odesa province, they've lost the ability to threaten the grain corridor, which we control, and they can't safely transport cargo and vehicles with large landing ships," Kovalenko said.

According to him, more "surprises" await the Russians.

Those include what kind of weapon the drones could carry.

"[Ukrainian developers] are constantly modernizing and improving the features and increasing the payload of these drones," he said.

On May 6, Russian media outlets published a video online showing the interception of a Ukrainian sea drone that was attacking a Russian aircraft in the Black Sea.

Analysts from the Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi concluded that Ukraine apparently had begun putting antiaircraft missiles on the Magura V5 drones.

In particular, the video shows the sea drone loaded with R-73 missiles.

"Using the R-73 is arguably the most pragmatic solution," Defense Express reported May 7 in an English article.

"R-73 also has no value as a trophy, if it ends up in the hands of the russian military," Defense Express added, using a lowercase r intentionally.

The R-73 is a Soviet weapon that entered service in 1984.

Defense Express cited the British-made Brimstone missile, which entered service in 2005, as something more valuable to Russia than the R-73 is.

Another possible armament for the Magura V5 is man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), Defense Express said in the article.

"An enemy helicopter has to come very close to this [drone] to find it," Zablotsky said.

Thus, "a MANPADS is all you need" to put on the drone to protect it, he added.

Every choice has its pros and cons, and "no matter how things progress, Ukraine has already gone down in naval history," Palamarchuk said.