The GuardianThe Guardian
<span>Photograph: Raymond Roig/AFP/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Raymond Roig/AFP/Getty Images

According to a new analysis of satellite images, Russia has deployed trained military dolphins at its naval base in the Black Sea to protect its fleet from an underwater attack.

The US Naval Institute reviewed satellite imagery of the naval base at Sevastopol harbor and concluded that two dolphin pens were moved to the base in February.

Russia has a history of training dolphins for military purposes.

The naval base in Sevastopol is important to the Russian military as it is in the southern part of the peninsula which Moscow seized in 2014). Many of the Russian ships that are out of range from missiles are vulnerable to underwater attacks according to the USNI.

The program to train dolphins at the aquarium near Sevastopol was born out of a Soviet-era scheme that fell into neglect in the 1990s.

Both the US and the Soviet Union used dolphins during the cold war to detect underwater objects such as mines.

The US has spent at least $28 million maintaining its own troops of dolphins and sea lions, which are also trainable, to potentially help with conflicts.

The mammals fell into the hands of the Russians after the invasion of the peninsula. RIA Novosti reported that Moscow planned to expand the scheme after Ukraine tried to get the animals back.

Our specialists developed new devices that convert dolphins into signals for the operator. One source told the Russian news agency that the Ukrainian navy lacked funds for such know-how.

Two years later, the Russian navy announced plans to buy five more dolphins and begin a bidding process for a contract to deliver them to the base by the end of the summer. The dolphins that came out of this contract are not certain if they are the same dolphins that are in Sevastopol today.

Russia used dolphins at its naval base in Syria during the war.

The Russian military may have trained other ocean creatures. A beluga whale was spotted off the coast of Norway and it was thought to have been trained by the Russian navy. Fishermen reported a beluga whale with strange harnesses, which may have held cameras, harassing their boats, pulling on straps and ropes from the side of boats.

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