Ukraine's Sea Baby boats now launch FPV attack drones
SkimNews Take
Ukraine turning naval strike boats into mobile drone magazines reframes surface vessels as expendable launch platforms rather than kinetic combatants — a template where range and repositioning matter more than firepower.
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- Sea Baby strike boats now carry six to eight FPV drones in side compartments alongside thermobaric Shmel rockets, with some guided by fiber-optic cable to evade Russian radio jamming.
- SBU officials cite a 930-mile (1,500 km) range on a 4,400-pound payload, letting the autonomous vessels close on Russian positions that land-based launchers cannot reach.
- Sub Sea Baby struck the Improved Kilo-class submarine B-271 Kolpino at its pier in Novorossiysk on Dec. 15 — the first unmanned underwater vehicle to hit a submarine in port — leaving a 9-meter crater visible in satellite imagery.
- U.S. special forces sank a target ship with a Ukrainian Magura at the Balikatan 2026 exercise off the Philippines on June 24, the first deployment of the technology in the Indo-Pacific.
- Uforce, maker of the Magura, is in talks with Indo-Pacific buyers and weighing at least two regional production sites as Ukraine began opening weapons exports in 2025.
- Capt. Garrett Miller said the U.S. Navy expects to field thousands of small uncrewed surface vessels across the Indo-Pacific by 2030, explicitly citing Magura's battlefield record.
- Ukraine's navy beat a NATO blue force in all five scenarios at the REPMUS naval-drone exercise in Portugal in September, the first time Kyiv ran the opposing force.
Why it matters: At a few hundred thousand dollars per boat — below the cost of a single modern torpedo — Ukraine's naval drones are now shaping U.S. and allied acquisition strategies for a potential Pacific conflict, with the Navy planning thousands of similar vessels by 2030 and Indo-Pacific buyers already in talks.
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