Analysts: – – Satellite images reveal “war dolphins”

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies, published by The Washington Post, shows two cages off the coast of the port city of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula.

Analysts from the US Maritime Institute (USNI) claim the photos reveal that Russia has deployed “war dolphins” in the Black Sea.

The purpose of the dolphins will be to fight against Ukrainian special divers who could potentially try to enter the harbor and sabotage Russian warships, according to submarine analyst HI Sutton.

The Washington Post writes that a spokesman for Maxar is behind Sutton’s analysis and explanation of the satellite images.

British intelligence states that there are around 20 Russian warships in the operational zone in the Black Sea. That is after Ukraine sunk Russian flagship “Moscow” in mid-April.

Sutton believes the dolphins have been deployed there since February – about the time the invasion of Ukraine began.

But military use of dolphins, and other marine mammals, is not new, according to experts.

Ever since the 1960s and the Cold War, both the US and Russian navies have trained dolphins and sea lions, among other things, to protect themselves from underwater threats.

A war dolphin’s task could be, for example, searching for mines on the seabed, attacking enemy divers or placing explosives on opponents’ ships.

According to the Washington Post, dolphins should be the most sophisticated echo sounder known to science. This makes it very effective to use them to detect mines and other potentially dangerous objects on the seabed.

During the NATO exercise “Blue Game” in 2001, there were four mine-seeking dolphins from the USA used in Norway.

The well-known white whale “Hvaldimir”, which was discovered outside Finnmark in 2019, is also believed to be used by the Russian Navy.