Nightmare for Putin as Russia's naval defense dolphins 'escape' near Crimea
A huge storm near Crimea may have set the dolphins free from the pens in another blow Vladimir Putin's military.
Vladimir Putin's Russian Navy has been dealt a blow after its specially trained dolphins escaped from their pens, according to reports.
A powerful storm swept across the Black Sea on Sunday and Monday, causing chaos on Russian ships and their military positions.
H.I. Sutton, a journalist and open-source intelligence analyst, says the storm broke the dolphins' pens in Sevastopol, occupied Crimea.
Mr Sutton said: "I am 100 percent confident that the dolphin pens have gone."
Countries around the world use dolphins for naval missions that require retrieving items from the seafloor, locating mines, and defending ships from enemy divers.
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Russia's naval dolphins include warm-water bottlenose dolphins and cold-water belugas.
In 2019, a beluga was spotted wearing a harness with the words: “Equipment St. Petersburg.”
The beluga was sighted in Norwegian waters, far from its natural habitat in the Arctic.
Now named Hvaldimir by biologists, the dolphin has been tracked swimming near Sweden.
Sebastian Strand, a marine biologist with the OneWhale organization, told The Guardian: “It could be that he’s searching for other beluga whales."
Russia's Black Sea Fleet first used dolphins in Sevastopol in 2018 as a defense against Ukrainian saboteurs.
While Ukraine has struggled to push Russian forces back on land, the country's Navy has inflicted damage on the Russian Navy.
Earlier this year, Moscow pulled back its fleet with British military intelligence saying they were "struggling to deal with concurrent threats on the southern flank of the Ukraine war" and "fleet activities are likely relocating to Novorossiysk in the face of threats to Sevastopol."
Now, the storm near Crimea has forced Russian naval forces back to base.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank has said that the Russian army could face “logistical ramifications” after damage to railway lines in occupied Crimea.
They added: "Challenging winter conditions will force both sides to rely more heavily on infantry-led ground attacks in the absence of aerial reconnaissance and artillery correction capabilities."
