A Ukrainian Submarine Just Blew Up A Russian Submarine

The Ukrainian boat was unmanned; the Russian boat ... wasn't

Two years ago, Ukrainian firm Ammo Ukraine launched Marichka, a prototype unmanned undersea vehicle, or UUV. The 18-foot-long, torpedo-like drone—which presumably navigates by way of a GPS-aided inertial system—can haul hundreds of pounds of explosives over a distance of up to 600 miles and strike Russian warships where they’re most vulnerable. Below the waterline.

Around the same time, another Ukrainian firm—Brave1—announced it was developing the Toloka class of UUV. The biggest, around 30 feet long, ranges an impressive 1,200 miles, Brave1 claimed.

Today, the Ukrainian state security service, the vaunted SBU, maneuvered an explosive UUV past anti-submarine defenses in the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea in southern Russia. It’s unclear whether the drone sub was based on Marichka or one of the Tolokas or some other design.