Ukraine's spy dolphins switch allegiance to Russia - Telegraph
Russian forces completed their take over of the Ukrainian navy’s assets in Crimea with the storming of the minesweeper Cherkessy.
The Ukrainian navy has been reduced to only 10 vessels, with the other 51 it held at the beginning of this month, including its only submarine, now flying the Russian flag.
A Russian Navy's St Andrew flag on the bow of the surrendered Ukrainian submarine 'Zaporozhye' (EPA)
But of all the Ukrainian military assets Russia has seized during the annexation, none is quite as unusual as the combat dolphin program.
The Soviet Union began training dolphins and other marine mammals to locate mines, mark underwater and obstacles and detect – and if necessary kill – enemy frogmen in the 1960s.
The program is shrouded in myth, but the mammals are believed to have been trained to kill frogmen with special harpoons or knives fitted to their backs, or drag them to the surface to be captured.
They were also reported to be fitted with packets of explosives and trained to carry out suicide attacks against enemy vessels, using their natural sonar to distinguish Soviet submarines from potential targets.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited both the animals and the experts who trained them.
With fewer geopolitical foes to worry about, the dolphins found a new role providing therapy swimming for disabled children.
Ukraine relaunched the military program in 2012, and the current generation of dolphins at the centre are already proficient at marking lost weapons and underwater obstacles with buoys.
But in February this year the defence ministry in Kiev announced plans to release the dolphins into the wild or rehouse them in civilian aquariums in a cost cutting move.
Now the base is hoping for a new lease of life under a better funded Russian navy.
"Our experts have developed new devices, which convert the detection of objects by the dolphins' underwater sonar to a signal on an operator's monitor," an employee told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.
"But the Ukrainian Navy lacked the funds for such know-how, and some projects had to be shuttered."
The next stage is to train them to kill enemy frogmen with knives or guns mounted on their heads, the employee told RIA Novosti.
The program has not always run smoothly however. In March last year three dolphins reportedly “deserted” to look for mates.
The only other country to train military dolphins is the United States, which runs a marine mammal program in San Diego, California.
But like much Soviet-era military equipment, “graduates” of the Soviet academy are reportedly to be found in militaries around the world.
In 2000 Boris Zhurid, a former submariner who ran the training program in Sevastopol, sold 27 marine animals including walruses, sea lions, and a Beluga whale to Iran, saying he had run out of food and medicine for them at the Black Sea base.
It is unclear whether the animals are still in the service of the Iranian military.
Russian forces completed their take over of the Ukrainian navy’s assets in Crimea with the storming of the minesweeper Cherkessy.
The Ukrainian navy has been reduced to only 10 vessels, with the other 51 it held at the beginning of this month, including its only submarine, now flying the Russian flag.
But of all the Ukrainian military assets Russia has seized during the annexation, none is quite as unusual as the combat dolphin program.
The Soviet Union began training dolphins and other marine mammals to locate mines, mark underwater and obstacles and detect – and if necessary kill – enemy frogmen in the 1960s.
The program is shrouded in myth, but the mammals are believed to have been trained to kill frogmen with special harpoons or knives fitted to their backs, or drag them to the surface to be captured.
They were also reported to be fitted with packets of explosives and trained to carry out suicide attacks against enemy vessels, using their natural sonar to distinguish Soviet submarines from potential targets.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited both the animals and the experts who trained them.
With fewer geopolitical foes to worry about, the dolphins found a new role providing therapy swimming for disabled children.
Ukraine relaunched the military program in 2012, and the current generation of dolphins at the centre are already proficient at marking lost weapons and underwater obstacles with buoys.
But in February this year the defence ministry in Kiev announced plans to release the dolphins into the wild or rehouse them in civilian aquariums in a cost cutting move.
Now the base is hoping for a new lease of life under a better funded Russian navy.
"Our experts have developed new devices, which convert the detection of objects by the dolphins' underwater sonar to a signal on an operator's monitor," an employee told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.
"But the Ukrainian Navy lacked the funds for such know-how, and some projects had to be shuttered."
The next stage is to train them to kill enemy frogmen with knives or guns mounted on their heads, the employee told RIA Novosti.
The program has not always run smoothly however. In March last year three dolphins reportedly “deserted” to look for mates.
The only other country to train military dolphins is the United States, which runs a marine mammal program in San Diego, California.
But like much Soviet-era military equipment, “graduates” of the Soviet academy are reportedly to be found in militaries around the world.
In 2000 Boris Zhurid, a former submariner who ran the training program in Sevastopol, sold 27 marine animals including walruses, sea lions, and a Beluga whale to Iran, saying he had run out of food and medicine for them at the Black Sea base.
It is unclear whether the animals are still in the service of the Iranian military.
