Ukraine Achieves World’s First Underwater Drone Strike on a Submarine: A Turning Point in Naval Warfare?

The Ukrainian state security service (SBU) has reported the first-ever successful attack on a submarine by an unmanned underwater vehicle in military history, damaging the Project 636 Improved Kilo class diesel-electric submarine at the Black Sea naval stronghold of Novorossiysk. A video released by the SBU appears to show the submarine exploding, after the unmanned vehicle navigated a packed harbour to reach its target. Although the Russian Defence Ministry has denied the attack ever took place, raising questions regarding Ukrainian claims and the veracity of the footage, the possibility of such a strike highlights an long speculated emergence of low cost unmanned underwater vehicles as a significant threat to submarines. This has considerable implications far beyond Eastern Europe, where Russia’s submarine presence is limited, and is particularly significant in the Pacific where the world’s most capable submarine fleets are heavily concentrated.  

The possibility of increasingly capable new generations of submarine-hunting underwater drones being able to threaten high value ships could have particularly serious implications for the Russian Armed Forces, which rely disproportionately heavily on nuclear powered submarines for both nuclear deterrence and for maritime power projection. Although Russia has laid down no destroyer or cruiser sized ships for its navy since the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, while the standing of its strategic bomber fleet has continued to decline in the face of far faster advances in China and the United States, the Russian nuclear powered attack submarine and ballistic missile submarine fleets continue to retain world leading standings. The ability of unmanned vessels deployed from Japan to target the Pacific fleet, or from NATO members’ forward positions in the Arctic to target the Northern Fleet fleet, to threaten these ships, could be a game changer for the balance of power at sea.

The possibility of unmanned anti-submarine vessels being deployed from destroyers, aircraft, or even larger submarines raises the possibility of high value warships facing significantly greater threats, potentially leading major military powers to significantly reduce investments. This also has significant implications for Western navies, with the sharp decline in the standings of the British and French nuclear forces and surface fleets having left both overwhelmingly reliant on their nuclear powered ballistic missile and attack submarine fleets both for deterrence and for power projection. The serious deterioration of the United States’ ground-based nuclear arsenal, which is the oldest and least advanced in the world by a considerable margin, and the major issues the country has faced modernising its ageing strategic bomber fleet, has similarly resulted in a high reliance on nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines for strategic deterrence. The increasingly serious questions being raised regarding the survivability of the surface navy in a major conflict, particularly in the Pacific, has also resulted in a renewed emphasis on attack submarine capabilities.