Dolphins being used to protect Russian navy station in Crimea. 

Military analysts believe dolphins are being deployed to protect a Russian navy base in the embattled Crimea, according to new satellite images.

The photographs appear to show dolphin pens in Sevastopol’s harbor, Crimea’s main city and a significant port with views out to the Black Sea.

The photographs have aroused fears that marine life is being militarized in order to obstruct Ukrainian activities.

According to a research by the US Naval Institute, the mammals are employed to dissuade underwater missions by identifying swimmers and mines.

Maxar Technologies, which has been providing shots of the fighting since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, has released the satellite images.

According to the USNI study, it is unclear whether Ukraine’s military wants to damage the installation, but it does describe how marine mammal programmes train animals to perform protective functions.

According to the article, this might prevent Ukrainian special operations personnel from penetrating the harbor underwater to sabotage warships.

According to Forces News, the US has a Mark 7 Marine Mammal System, also known as a bottlenose dolphin, to detect marine mines.

Gervase Phillips, a history, politics, and philosophy lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, spoke to Forces News on the role of militarized animals before Russia’s invasion.

“We don’t have anything like a dog’s nose to smell explosives yet, and nothing as good as a dolphin or a sea lion in finding items on the bottom,” he said.

There are a variety of military functions for which we have no realistic substitute.”

The US Navy began studying dolphins in 1960, with the intention of improving the hydrodynamics of its torpedoes as well as its ability to identify items under water.

Nonetheless, the program’s reach appeared to be swiftly expanding.

Soon after, dolphins were being trained to find enemy mines and misplaced goods on the seafloor.

According to a report from Manchester Metropolitan University, the Soviet Union is thought to have taught dolphins in a facility in Crimea on the Black Sea in a similar fashion to the Americans.

Following the breakup of the Union, many of these dolphins were transferred to Iran, according to the BBC in 2000.

The Ukrainian Navy reopened the facility in 2012, but since Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014, it has been back in Russian hands.