The latest successful Kerch Bridge attack took place on July 17. It caused significant damage to the road lanes. Although initial reports guessed that the attack was carried out with Ukraine’s Kamikaze drone boats (unmanned surface vessels or USV), the video unveiled today is visual evidence.
In the video, the USV’s cameras show that the suicide drone moved at speed and targeted the pillar of the bridge. It also indicates that the attack occurred at night and that the video was taken with the USV’s FLIR (forward looking infra red camera) system.
According to CNN, the USV was carrying 850 kilograms of explosives to destroy the pillar of the bridge.
Another footage shared by Ukrainian blog accounts shows that the name of the drone is “Sea Baby”. The video below shows in great details the hull, electro-optical system, and SATCOM dome. “Sea Baby” appears to be yet another (the latest?) evolution of the now many maritime drones of the Ukrainian Navy. The head of the SBU, Vasily Malyuk, told CNN that the drone used to strike the bridge was the result of months of development.
“Marine surface drones are a unique invention of the Security Service of Ukraine. No private firm was involved in this. With the help of these drones, we recently carried out a successful strike on the Crimean bridge, a major attack on the Olenegorsky Gornyak and the Sig tanker.”
Vasily Malyuk, Head of SBU
Ukraine started to use kamikaze USVs in the war since the 2022 autumn. The first assault, which occurred on October 29, 2022, was shocking for the Russian Black Sea Fleet as it was not expected. An Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate and mine countermeasure (MCM) ship were reportedly hit by the Ukrainian USV during the attack.
After the first attack, Ukraine conducted several other raids against Sevastopol Naval Base, Kerch Bridge, and several Russian units in the Black Sea. While the first attacks were concluded with great success, Russian units were able to repel the kamikaze USV attacks with machine guns. While the analysts were thinking that the Russian fleet has been learning from previous mistakes, Ukraine seems to achieve significant damage on a landing ship, which is important for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in terms of logistic transportation.
