Dolphins deployed
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Russia deployed trained dolphins to guard Black Sea naval base, satellite images show
With its military manpower strained by the fighting in Ukraine, Russia appears to have devolved sea defense to a different mammal: dolphins.
Moscow has deployed trained dolphins at the entrance to a key port in the Black Sea, apparently to protect a naval base from potential Ukrainian attacks, according to a review of satellite images by the commercial firm Maxar and the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI).
Two transportable dolphin pens were moved to the Sevastopol harbor in February, around the time Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, according to analysis of the satellite images by H I Sutton, a submarine analyst who specializes in the use of marine mammal pens and wrote for the naval institute.
The dolphins may be tasked with preventing Ukrainian divers from infiltrating the harbor underwater and sabotaging warships there, which sit just out of reach of Ukrainian missiles, he said.
In an email to NBC News, Sutton said that dolphins were “the most obvious type of mammal” being used to protect the naval base in the Black Sea. He added that these were most likely the same pens that Russia deployed to Tartus in Syria in 2018, where they used dolphins to counter enemy divers, retrieve objects from the sea floor, and perform intelligence operations.
A spokesperson for Maxar Technologies, who provided NBC with the satellite imagery, said that he “agreed with the analytic assessments made by our partners at the USNI.”
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@Axtremus said in Dolphins deployed:
What’s next? Deploy bears to guard trucks and ammunitions depots?
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Have the Dolphins surrendered yet?
