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Russian Drone Aircraft Destroys Ukrainian Drone Boat

SBU
Ukraine SBU

Published Feb 2, 2025 5:17 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Drone-on-drone warfare is a major component of the Russia-Ukraine war, and social media posts from both sides of the conflict are filled with videos of airborne drones destroying the other side's drones on land and in the skies. For the first time, Russian forces have released footage of what appears to be an unmanned aerial vehicle destroying a Ukrainian sea drone with a missile - possibly the first time that this has ever been done in combat. 

Ukraine's drone forces have plagued the Russian Navy for the last two years, and have essentially driven most Russian surface combatants out of the western half of the Black Sea. After multiple losses to Ukrainian "Magura" drone boats and Western-supplied cruise missiles, the Black Sea Fleet has largely abandoned its spiritual home in Sevastopol and retreated to the relative safety of Novorossiysk, near the Kerch Strait. 

Even this bastion is within range of Ukraine's drone forces, so Russia has deployed helicopter patrols to find and destroy inbound Magura boats. Ukraine's operators countered by mounting simple, self-guided air-to-air missiles on their drones, and one Magura successfully damaged or destroyed two helicopters in one engagement in December. It was the first known instance of a drone boat destroying an aircraft. 

Russia has many other options to patrol the Black Sea, including armed unmanned drones (UCAVs), which are less costly to lose. A newly-released video from the Russian Ministry of Defense appears to show a Kronshtadt Orion / Inokhodets UCAV attacking and destroying a Magura suicide drone boat in the Black Sea - a rare instance of a drone aircraft destroying a drone boat.

(It may be the first such engagement, but U.S. forces may have gotten there first. U.S. Central Command destroyed more than a few Houthi drone boats near Yemen last year, and it is possible that U.S. Air Force drones were responsible for some of those strikes.)

Russia's Orion drone has seen little use in the intense front-line combat in Eastern Ukraine, likely because it is not able to survive long against Ukrainian air defenses. Instead, Russian forces have relied heavily on low-altitude, short-range loitering munitions, which fly below the radar and do not need to survive past one engagement. Instead, the Orion has been deployed where air defenses are thin - and the Black Sea is a prime candidate.