Russia’s efforts to copy Ukraine’s wildly successful sea drones won’t achieve much, expert says

Naval drones have formed a key part of Ukraine’s attacks against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.

Earlier this year, Ukraine’s military claimed to have destroyed a third of the fleet, and in March, the UK’s Ministry of Defence declared it “functionally inactive.”

Ukraine said this month that Russia had pulled its last Black Sea Fleet patrol ship out from Crimea.

Rogers said that “there is no denying that Ukrainian engineers have had great success in building a maritime drone force from very little.”

He added that their ingenuity in the earlier stages of the war had “led to jet skis, speed boats, and commercial technologies being transformed into viable and vital defensive weapons that severely stunted Russian naval operations.”

Drones, both on land and sea, have been used more in Russia’s invasion than in any other conflict to date.

They’ve been used to attack soldiers, weaponry, and infrastructure, as well as to gather intel to guide other weaponry.

Drones and drone-jamming equipment are also constantly being upgraded, with both sides trying to out-develop and learn from each other’s technology.

Rogers previously described this to BI as a “cat and mouse game.”

In his comments earlier this week, Yerin said that Russia was unlikely to succeed in copying Ukrainian technology because Ukraine’s engineers are so skilled.

He said Ukraine worked on them for years and that it’s “unlikely that the enemy will be able to replicate anything like this.”

Rogers, however, said Russia could be successful.

“Just because Ukraine has led the way on maritime drone development, does not mean that Russia would not benefit from capturing and analyzing parts of captured Ukrainian drones,” he said.

He added that Russia has “vast experience in naval engineering and could utilize elements in their own maritime drone designs if needed,” and that it could lean on its relationship with Iran, which has been aiding Russia’s drone efforts and has been working on sea drones itself.

But that still wouldn’t make them very useful in the current conflict, he said.

Russia may, however, be thinking about future wars, like one with NATO.

Many European countries say Russia could attack elsewhere in the continent if it’s not defeated in Ukraine, which could result in a wider conflict.

Even so, it’s not clear how much of an advantage naval drones would be in such a war.