Ukraine Crowdfunding Fleet of Naval Drones to Counter Russian Black Sea Fleet

Posted on by November 12, 2022

USV that washed ashore in Crimea in September

At the end of October, Russia announced that Ukraine had launched the “most massive attack by drones and remotely piloted surface vehicles on the waters of the Bay of Sevastopol in the history of the conflict.” Unconfirmed sources claim that several of the Russian ships from the fleet were damaged or sunk, including the frigate Admiral Makarov.

Yesterday, Ukraine announced that it is seeking to build 100 remotely piloted surface vessels, also referred to as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) or more simply as “naval drones”, through its crowdfunding platform UNITED24.

The Drive blog reports that the USVs are 18-foot-long vessels said to be capable of carrying a combat load of up to 400 pounds, with a top maximum speed of about 50 mph and an operational range of up to about 500 miles. Each USV has a $250,000 price tag that the website says includes a ground-based, autonomous control station, a transportation and storage system, and “a data processing center.”

Ukraine is appealing to donors around the world, offering those who give $250,000 or more the right to name one of the unmanned vessels.

The USVs are believed to be powered by engines built for jet skis and to be ‘suicide’ or ‘kamikaze’ vessels, meant to explode when they arrive at their targets.

Mykhalio Fedorov, the deputy prime minister of Ukraine, argued that the naval drones are a cost-effective means of altering the balance of power in the Black Sea after Ukraine lost most of its navy when Russia annexed Crimea. 

“Small and fast, they are capable of successfully attacking Russian ships worth hundreds of millions of dollars, fulfilling their key objective — to force these ships to stay at the bay because of the fear of being hit,” he said.

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