Russian ship fights off Ukrainian drone attack.

 

A Vishnya class intelligence ship similar to the Priazovye. Russian MOD photo.

A Russian intelligence ship fought off an Ukrainian drone attack in the Black Sea. Reuters. Six high speed kamakazie drone boats attacked the Russian ship Priazovye. The ship was there to protect pipelines and monitor the war in Ukraine. A US Global Hawk drone was in the vicinity of the ship during the attack. The pipelines supply Europe and Turkey with natural gas. 

⚡️#BREAKING The Russian MoD publish footage of them repelling the kamikaze boat attack on the Priazovie https://t.co/efLjGgQEVg pic.twitter.com/jLi1EISzGg

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 11, 2023

My Comment:

This was a fairly embarrassing failure by the Ukrainians. It doesn't look like these drone boats came even close to destroying the Priazovye. Indeed, a lightly armed intelligence ship was able to easily destroy these drones without taking any damage. 

That isn't to say that there wasn't a threat here. If the Russians had been asleep at the wheel or under attack by other drones, or manned vehicles like a helicopter, they could have very easily lost their ship. Those drones were fairly large and made a big explosion when they were hit by the ship's cannons. 

But the attack failed, probably because the element of surprise was lost. Every article I have seen has made a big deal out of the fact that an American RQ-4 Global Hawk drone was in the area but I doubt it was the only one. My guess is that Russia had their own drone coverage and knew this attack was coming as it was launched. That probably allowed the crew to prepare and meant that they were able to destroy the drones. 

To be fair, it probably was important that we had one of our drones during this attack. My guess is that they were guiding these drones into their attacks. That probably crosses the line from simply supporting the Ukrainians to actually fighting in the war... 

The Ukraine war is probably one of the first real drone wars. Indeed, both sides have used thousands of drones and it's clear that it's a huge deal. However, I don't know if these boat drones are really going to be effective. Like I said above, it's possible they would have worked, but you really need to have the element of surprise and that wasn't present here. Still, I shudder to think what could have happened if these drones were used in terror attacks against civilians. Given the proliferation of Ukrainian weapons across the world it's very possible... 

As for the war itself, this seems like it was an attempt to try and get the bad news from the Ukrainian offensive by destroying a major Russian warship. The Priazovye is an important ship and was likely gathering intelligence and Ukrainian troop movements. Destroying it would have been a propaganda coup and would have been militarily valuable as well. Instead, it was just more embarrassing news for the Ukrainians.