Follow the money and the story tells itself: each Magura V5 runs about $250,000, and the ship it sinks can be worth hundreds of millions. Out of that arithmetic Ukraine has built a naval campaign since 2022 that no fleet of its own could have funded.
The mechanics here are spare. The Magura V5, the latest version Kyiv has shown, is 5.5 meters long, weighs up to 1,000 kilograms, carries a 200-kilogram payload, runs 60 hours and reaches 800 kilometers, beaming live video to its operators. Advanced GPS and cameras guide it; a low radar signature hides it. A larger cousin, the Sea Baby, was reported, though never confirmed, in the July strike that shut the Kerch Bridge, the key supply route linking Russia to Crimea. Ukraine claims a first: a dedicated production unit for such drones, locally designed with some foreign parts, funded through United24, the state crowdfunding platform behind what it calls the world’s first drone fleet.
The campaign record runs from October 2022, when the drones first struck vessels moored off occupied Crimea, through the port attack that followed the bridge strike and damaged a warship, to February 14, 2024, when a Magura V5 sank a Russian ship in the Black Sea. The attrition let Kyiv resume some grain exports, and officials count about 20 percent of Russian missile attacks on Ukraine as launched from the Black Sea.
November 2025 moved the campaign into economics. In a joint operation by the SBU, the navy and the 13th Main Directorate, Sea Baby drones hit two Gambian-flagged shadow-fleet tankers in international waters near Turkey on November 28 and 29. The 79,999-deadweight-ton KAIRO, built 2002, was hit Friday afternoon some 28 nautical miles south of Kocaeli, burned nearly 24 hours in an engine-room fire and now lists without power. The 115,340-ton VIRAT, built 2018, was struck twice early Saturday about 35 nautical miles off the Turkish coast, its propeller and rudder severely damaged. Both were empty, steaming for Novorossiysk to take on crude for Indian and Chinese buyers on routes that evade the G7’s $60-per-barrel price cap; KAIRO drew EU sanctions in July 2025, VIRAT a US blacklist in January 2025. A separate November 29 strike damaged a Caspian Pipeline Consortium mooring buoy.
On closer reading, the ledger is the weapon. Since 2022 the drones have sunk or disabled over 30 Russian vessels, naval and commercial alike, weakening the Black Sea Fleet with no traditional navy required; this from a country that lost 80% of its vessels with Crimea in 2014. Analysts see higher insurance premiums for any vessel calling at a Russian Black Sea port, a hidden tax on Kremlin oil revenue. The catch for Moscow is that the cheaper weapon keeps setting the terms.
Sources
- Meet Ukraine’s Small but Lethal Weapon Lifting Morale: Unmanned Sea Drones Packed With Explosives | VINnews
- Ukraine Sea Baby Drones Hit Russian Oil Tankers
