Crimea Warship Sunk by Drone ‘Wolfpack’

Kyiv’s latest strike on Russia’s naval forces in the Black Sea was inspired by World War II submarine tactics, one Ukrainian military expert has said, as the Kremlin counts the cost of yet surprise maritime attack.

Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and now an adviser to the Ukrainian parliament’s national security, defense and intelligence committee, told Newsweek on Wednesday that the overnight sinking of the Ropucha-class Caesar Kunikov landing ship took lessons from history.

“The ‘Wolfpack’—Wolfsrudeltaktik in German—was a tactic of the Second World War in the Atlantic Ocean, using a numerical advantage to launch a massive attack by submarines on an enemy ship,” Stupak explained.

“With the end of the Second World War, the use of ‘wolfpack’ tactics ceased. Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022 provoked the emergence of a new Ukrainian tactic: ‘swarm of drones.'”

On Wednesday Kyiv confirmed reports that Ukrainian naval drones attacked and destroyed another Russian Black Sea Fleet landing ship, the fifth such vessel since the start of the war. The Ukrainian military says it has “destroyed” 25 Russian military vessels and ships and one submarine since February 2022.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.

Earlier this month, Ukraine said it sunk a Russian Tarantul-class guided missile corvette, the Ivanovets, with a number of seaborne drones in an overnight raid. Kyiv said on February 1 that the vessel sustained a “number of direct hits to the hull” before sinking, valuing it at up to $70 million.

Navy officials at the time claimed to have used the country’s MAGURA V5 surface drones in the attack. Ukraine’s allies noted that footage of the attack from several different angles showed “multiple uncrewed surface vehicles using swarming tactics to successfully strike the ship, resulting in a large explosion.”

A similar method appears to have been used in the attack on Caesar Kunikov, Stupak said.

“Today’s mockery by the GUR and the navy against the large amphibious assault ship Caesar Kunikov is additional confirmation of the effectiveness of swarm tactics against individual ships,” he said.

“Judging by the published video, approximately five drones took part in the attack at the same time. Interestingly, the first hit was completely unexpected for the ship’s crew of 87 people. Only after that, the ship’s crew began a desperate resistance using small arms; it is likely that one of the attacking drones was destroyed.

“The result is on the scoreboard, or rather on the seabed.”

Moscow is faced with difficult choices as its naval losses mount and Ukraine hones its asymmetric maritime strategy. Stupak set out three options.

“Take your main assets out of the Black Sea—for example, to the Baltic Sea—and thus preserve them.” Another, he said, would be to “hide” at other Black Sea ports like Novorossiysk or breakaway Abkhazia in Russian-occupied Georgia.

If Russian warships remain, Stupak said, they may need to rely on “convoy tactics, where large ships are surrounded by smaller ships which must destroy attacking drones, or—in extreme cases—make themselves vulnerable.”

Kyiv claims that President Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea Fleet has been forced to change tack after Ukrainian naval drones destroyed its missile-armed corvette Ivanovets near annexed Crimea.

Dmitry Pletenchuk, the spokesman of the Ukrainian Navy, said the prized fleet was now shifting its focus, away from combat operations against Ukraine and towards the protection of its bases, training its sailors and overseeing civilian shipping.

“The Russians spent several days thinking about and analyzing the incident with their missile boat Ivanovets,” Pletenchuk said, according to the news outlet NV. “Even the training process was suspended, which is already a non-standard decision for the Black Sea Fleet.”