The first Magura was a fishing boat. Early that summer of 2022, four Ukrainian engineers were told by the country’s security service to “do something with enemy fleet”, and they took a 6 meter hull, cut the deck down and ran a low ridge along its centerline so it would be hard to see and hard to hit. Power came from a small outboard.
Later versions followed fast. The second swapped the outboard for jet-ski propulsion. The third entered service by October 2022. Slightly bigger, it hid a charge of about 150 kg inside the hull, and it was the first design simple enough for dispersed workshops to turn out in quantity.
What the V5 is
The V5 reached the public at the IDEF 2023 defense show in Turkiye, where Ukrainian delegates revealed its name and figures. CNN’s video report from the Black Sea confirmed it was already in the arsenal. Ivan Sybyriakov of the state arms trader SpetsTechnoExport described it as a multi-purpose platform: it can strike, but also watch, search and rescue, or hunt mines. Defense Express noted that nobody outside the military knew how many were in service. By the end of 2022, United24 fundraising had paid for at least 30 of the boats.
At Eurosatory 2024 in France, Army Recognition recorded a hull 5.5 meters long and 1.5 meters wide, with a loaded weight of 1000 kg. It carries up to 320 kg of payload with an operational reach of up to 800 km. The craft navigates by GNSS, inertial and visual systems, and can stream as many as three HD video feeds at the same moment.
Who runs them
The programme split as it grew. The security service kept its own line, which turned into the Sea Baby. The Magura family passed to military intelligence, the Main Directorate known as HUR, and more precisely to Group 13, the unit that carried out the strikes. Both agencies supplied operators to the 385th brigade, formed in August 2023 as the world’s first military unit given over entirely to naval drones. Not everything about the numbering is settled: the maker, UFORCE, said in May 2026 that it “has never produced a V3 version”.
Attacks on warships
The best-documented operations came in early 2024. On 1 February 2024, after dark, a half dozen V5s went after the corvette Ivanovets off Lake Donuzlav, in Russian-occupied Crimea. She sank. Just under two weeks on, the big landing ship Tsezar Kunikov was lost off Alupka. Then came the turn of the patrol vessel Sergey Kotov, hit near the Kerch Strait on 5 March. Ukraine’s intelligence service credits Group 13 with all three.
No single warhead does the job alone. Group 13’s commander has laid out the routine. The lead boat, which he calls the “hooligan”, only has to get through and explode wherever it can. “The first drone must reach the target because after that, we have an algorithm,” he said. Six boats arriving in a row were enough to flood and rip apart a ship of about 550 tonnes. Cheap hulls matter for that reason, because the method needs numbers.
The Sergey Kotov had survived earlier attacks, and the commander credited its crew: “Sergey Kotov’s team was working well together. Each of them knew what to do.”
Sources
- MAGURA V5, V7 and MV11: Ukraine's Naval Drones (drone-warfare.com)
- MAGURA V5, V7 and MV11: Ukraine's Naval Drones (drone-warfare.com), operations section
- Media Reveal Magura V5, the Ukrainian Naval Drone: Features and Specifications (Defense Express)
- Ukraine debuts advanced Magura V5 Unmanned Surface Vehicle at Eurosatory 2024 (Army Recognition)
