Russia Building New Ship Designed to Thwart Ukraine’s Drone Attacks

Russia is building a new naval training vessel that may help teach helicopter pilots to combat Ukrainian drones.

Ukraine’s so-called “army of drones” has been a nearly constant thorn in the side of Russian forces for the bulk of the more than 20 months since Vladimir Putin’s military launched its Ukraine invasion on February 24, 2022.

Every month, Kyiv uses approximately 10,000 unmanned aerial vehicles—consisting of “kamikaze” drones, loitering munitions and reconnaissance drones—according to an estimate earlier this year from the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

The Russian Ministry of Defense recently decided to move forward with a plan to build a “floating desk” training vessel due in part to the threat of naval drones that Ukraine has been launching from the Black Sea, according to a report from Russian newspaper Izvestia.

Construction of the vessel, part of an initiative Russia has dubbed “Project 14400,” is expected to be completed by next year. The project was previously put on hold but was reportedly revived due to the current state of the war in Ukraine.

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

The new vessel will effectively serve as a “helicopter carrier,” providing an alternative to larger aircraft carriers by equipping a smaller ship with a helipad and other specialized equipment and crew.

Helicopter pilots will be trained on landing and takeoff procedures from the ships, as well as techniques to detect and eliminate Ukraine’s marine drones, which are often hard to spot due to their ability to evade radar by flying low to the surface and making little noise.

Ukraine’s sea drones may also pose a threat to the Russian military due to their relatively low cost. Some models are being built with crowdfunded “off-the-shelf” materials obtained by the “army of drones” initiative, according to the BBC.

In addition to teaching helicopter pilots techniques for hunting drones, the Russian vessel is expected to be used to patrol maritime regions. The size of the new fleet is unclear, as is the number of “floating desks” that will ultimately be sent to the Black Sea.

Reports that Russia has decided to move forward with the construction of the ship come roughly one month after Ukraine claimed the number of Russian artillery pieces destroyed by drones had hit a record high.

On Sunday, an unnamed Ukrainian drone operator also claimed to have achieved a record by striking a Russian tank just under 12 miles beyond the front lines.

While many of the Ukrainian drone strikes have been launched from the ground, Ukraine has also been investing in a fleet of aquatic “kamikaze” drones.

Ukraine’s experimental “Sea Baby” drone has already been used to target the Russian Black Sea fleet—which regularly launches cruise missile strikes on mainland Ukraine—and the Kerch Bridge, one of Moscow’s key assets in occupied Crimea.