There Is Some Evidence That Russian Sub The Ukrainians Droned Has Hull Damage

Why is the 'Kilo' possibly chained to its pier?

On Monday, the Ukrainian state security service—the SBU—maneuvered an explosive drone submarine into the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea in southern Russia.

The unmanned underwater vehicle exploded just aft of the a Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine, one of three Kilos in service with the Russian Black Sea Fleet after a series of Ukrainian raids in 2023 and 2024 destroyed another boat in the class. The Black Sea Fleet’s Kilos routinely fire Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities.

While the targeted Kilo clearly avoided a direct hit and is still afloat and moored pierside, the Ukrainian UUV did explode close to the boat—and may have inflicted enough external or internal damage to immobilize it.

On Tuesday, the first post-attack commercial satellite imagery of Novorossiysk became available—and revealed that other warships in the port were on the move. But the targeted Kilo hadn’t budged.

That the targeted Kilo is apparently still immobile, two days after the raid, “allows one to suggest it may not be able to move at this time,” Radio Free Europe reporter Mark Krutov noted. Emphasis mine.

There’s other evidence, however scant, that the Kilo has suffered meaningful damage. On Tuesday, Russian state media broadcast a heavily censored video of the sub at its pier. The coverage obscured the vessel’s stern, where damage is likeliest.

But the same coverage may have depicted another interesting detail: heavy metal chains and shackles seemingly connecting the Kilo to the pier. “That isn’t … a light shackle,” the purveyor of the ShipWrekt podcast noted. “That’s a lot of steel.”