A satellite image on Friday shows dolphin pens placed at the entrance to Sevastopol Bay, Crimea. (Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies / Brochure via Reuters)
Has Russia used marine mammals for military purposes in the past?
According to the Moscow Times, Russia has been training marine mammals since Soviet times. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union used the port of Sevastopol as a base for training dolphins and whales in activities such as mine search and planting explosives, and it is also believed that the Soviets trained sea creatures to kill submarines. However, this plan was considered neglected when the Soviet Union fell in the 1990s. In 2012, Russia denied a report claiming it was developing a military training program for dolphins to attack enemy divers with guns attached to their heads. their. A trainer works with a dolphin that belonged to a top-secret Soviet Navy division in the military port of Sevastopol. (Reuters) Prior to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, the aquarium in Sevastopol – then part of Ukraine – trained dolphins to swim with children with disabilities and was used in various therapeutic sessions. However, after the Kremlin-led forces occupied the area, an aquarium worker told Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency that the dolphins and seals had received military training again. The official reportedly said engineers were working on developing the program, which would use marine mammals to find submerged objects and enemy divers using their sonar communications systems. Viktor Baranets, a Russian reserve colonel, confirmed to a Russian television network in 2019: “We have military dolphins for combat roles; we do not cover that. The story goes on A member of the Ukrainian army trains a marine mammal on the Crimean peninsula in 1992. (Wojtek Laski / Getty Images) “In Sevastopol we have a center for military dolphins, trained to solve various tasks, from the analysis of the seabed to the protection of a section of water, the killing of foreign divers, the placement of mines in the hulls of foreign ships.” In 2016, the Russian Ministry of Defense bought five dolphins. The mammals were bought for $ 26,000 – $ 5,200 each – and it was not revealed what their role would be. Two years later, a report by the Russian Defense Ministry’s Zvezda television station revealed that the navy was training beluga whales, dolphins and seals in Arctic waters, the Guardian reported. The report said the belugas had been rejected from the program when they began to get sick after swimming for long periods in icy waters, according to the Siberian Times. A dolphin plays with a ball during a training session at the Sevastopol Dolphinarium in 2014. (Sergei Ilnitsky / EFE / EPA / ZUMA Press) But it appeared that the Belugas had not thrown the Russian Navy when, in 2019, a Beluga was found off the coast of Norway. The whale, which wore a leash with a holster to hold a GoPro that read the words “St. Petersburg Equipment”, was spotted by fishermen after it began harassing their boats. Navy experts believed that Beluga’s strange behavior was due to his possible military training. “If this whale comes from Russia and there is good reason to believe it, then it is not Russian scientists but rather the navy that did it,” Martin Beau, of the Marine Research Institute in Norway, told the Guardian. But Baranets broke the beluga’s link to Russia, saying at the time: “If we were using this animal for espionage, do you really think we would attach a cell phone number with the message ‘Please call this number’?”
Have other countries done the same?
A dolphin flies out of the water while training to clear minefields in the Persian Gulf in 2003. (Brien Aho / US Navy via Reuters) There are two world-renowned military dolphin training facilities, one in Sevastopol and the other at the NIWC Pacific, or the Naval Information Warfare Center in San Diego. The US Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions since the Vietnam War. In 1969, a Navy pilot project called Project Deep Ops saw two killer whales and a pilot whale being trained to retrieve objects lost in the ocean that were inaccessible to motorcyclists and divers. Animals such as California sea lions and dolphins have been used to detect mines on the seabed.
Why use dolphins, sea lions and whales?
A marine mammal is equipped with a cage and an instrument during mine and saboteur training on the Crimean peninsula in 1992. (Wojtek Laski / Getty Images) There are several reasons why marine mammals such as dolphins, sea lions and whales could be used for military purposes. Because of their sonar communication systems and ability to dive deep, animals are far more efficient than any new technology. “It’s not strange [Russian President Vladimir] “Putin’s all sorts of people would think dolphins are a weapon of war,” Andrew Lambert, a professor of naval history at King’s College London, told NBC News. “Like much of what we see in Ukraine, it’s the work of the Soviet Union being reproduced by the current Russian government.” He added about the dolphins: “This is their world and they will find you under water very, very fast”.
