Tag Archives: NATO

“With the Shield, or On It?”: Aspides and the EU’s Aspirations for Sea Control

April 7, 2026 Guest Author 1 Comment

By Giacomo Leccese

On 23 February 2026, the Council of the EU decided to extend the mandate of the EU naval operation EUNAVFOR Aspides, launched in March 2024 to safeguard the sea lines of communication (SLOC) in the Red Sea and protect European commercial vessels from Houthi attacks. Aspides has marked the most demanding naval engagement of the Union to date, moving beyond the low-intensity context that has traditionally characterized EU maritime operations. The choice to operate separately from the U.S.-led Prosperity Guardian coalition also signaled a deliberate effort to assert European strategic autonomy, with distinct assets, rules of engagement, and political objectives. The renewal of the operation, after two years of sustained deployment, therefore provides a valuable opportunity to assess the performance of the mission and to measure it against the stated ambition of the EU to act as a “global maritime security provider.” Regardless of how the situation in the Red Sea and the Houthi threat will evolve in the near future, an analysis of the mission provides the opportunity to examine some general gaps in the organization and efficiency of EU naval operations, as well as some limitations in the combat capabilities of NATO navies to address high-intensity threats at sea and counter potential sea denial actions in strategic chokepoints around the globe.

The name of the mission, Aspides, comes from the Greek word for “shield” (ἀσπίς). In ancient Spartan tradition, a warrior would return from battle either carrying his shield or borne upon it. After two years at sea, will the EU return with its shield in hand, or be carried back upon it? The evidence suggests the latter. Despite some operational and tactical achievements, the mission has struggled to meet its objectives, constrained by limited naval capabilities and a mandate that remained narrow and largely reactive to Houthi actions.

Measuring Success against the Mission Mandate

To evaluate the effectiveness of Aspides, it is necessary to measure its outcomes against its mandate. The mission’s objectives were to restore and safeguard freedom of navigation, escort and protect vessels, and enhance maritime situational awareness in the Red Sea. From this perspective, Aspides achieved notable operational and tactical results, yet did not fully accomplish its stated goals, especially those related to the restoration of freedom of navigation and the protection of ships. During the operation, shipping agencies continued to avoid the Suez route, as concerns persisted regarding the safety of merchant vessels. Despite an additional 3,000 nautical miles and approximately ten days of sailing on the Asia-Western Europe route, the shipping industry continued to choose the Cape of Good Hope route, circumnavigating Africa. Even with a modest increase in traffic following the halt in Houthi attacks, the number of ships transiting the Red Sea remained well below the pre-crisis average of 72–75 per day recorded before the onset of Houthi sea denial operations in November 2023. To resume normal traffic in the Red Sea, shipping needs to have “safe enough” conditions, which means more protection. Aspides did not achieve this threshold.

Figure 1: Traffic trends in the Red Sea Route between November 2023 and November 2025. (Source: Hellenic Shipping News)

Concerning the protection of vessels, Aspides provided support to over 1,200 ships, demonstrating the ability of the European warships employed to intercept the various air threats posed by the Houthis. Despite this, the inability of the mission to meet the commercial timelines of the shipping industry prompted some vessels to risk transiting the Red Sea without waiting for escort availability. This led several European vessels to be targeted by Houthi attacks, in some cases suffering severe damage or loss. In this sense, also the objective of escorting and protecting vessels cannot be considered fully achieved, as the escort model failed to meet acceptable standards for responding to the needs of the shipping industry.

Insufficient Assets, Insufficient Protection

A key factor explaining the inability of Aspides to guarantee the required level of protection concerns the scarcity of naval assets at its disposal. Throughout its deployment, the mission maintained an average presence of only three warships, far below the estimated operational need of at least ten naval units supported by air assets. Such a limited presence inevitably constrained the mission’s capacity to ensure regular and comprehensive coverage along a maritime corridor extending for more than 1,200 nautical miles. Under these conditions, Aspides was able to organize only a maximum of four escorted transits each day (typically two northbound and two southbound) in spite of a minimum of eight to ten daily convoy movements indicated by shipping companies to be necessary to restore pre-crisis traffic levels. The mission is based on an escort-on-demand model, in which close protection is provided to vessels upon request and naval units are assigned when available. In this model, the limited number of available warships inevitably creates long waiting times and queues for maritime traders before receiving an escort. In a commercial context where voyage decisions are made weekly, such delays have led many companies to reroute their merchant ships to the Cape Route or to attempt the dangerous passage through the Red Sea without protection. This explains both the failure to resume normal trade flows towards Suez and the attacks suffered by some unprotected European vessels, such as the Greek-operated Eternity C and Magic Seas, as well as the Dutch freighter Minervagracht.

The limited number of available naval assets reveals some significant gaps in European naval power. After the end of the Cold War and during periods of severe fiscal austerity, European navies underwent a significant downsizing. The decline in defense spending and the allocation of resources to the detriment of navies, given the importance of counterinsurgency operations in the early 2000s, reduced the number of naval units.

Despite this, European fleets have expanded their theater of operations beyond the usual seas surrounding the continent, as demonstrated by recent engagements in the Indo-Pacific. This deprives the European mission in the Red Sea of useful assets and places further strain on already limited available budgets. Furthermore, European fleets have been reshaped to focus on low-intensity operations, from crisis management to the fight against illegal trafficking, search and rescue, counter-piracy, and disaster relief. In this context, European navies lost 32% of their main surface combatants (frigates and destroyers) between 1999 and 2018, and Europe’s combat power at sea is considered to be half of what it was during the height of the Cold War. This decline is particularly impactful in the case of Aspides. Unlike other recent European naval operations, such as EUNAVFOR Atalanta, countering the Houthis requires high-end capabilities, with warships capable of providing air defense against threats such as anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in addition to unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

After years of downscaling, European navies retain only a limited number of frigates and destroyers designed for air defense. These warships are comparatively lightly armed and lack the necessary number of Battle Force Missiles (BFM) and corresponding vertical launch system (VLS) cells to conduct and sustain high-end naval operations effectively. In this context, not only are there only a few usable ships for Aspides, but these vessels also have a limited operational tempo. Indeed, in a high-intensity environment like the one presented by the Houthis, the limited number of VLS cells compared to US and Asian warships forces European units to return to a nearby base to reload their interceptor missile magazines more frequently. Added to this already limited capacity are several problems with onboard systems malfunctions, which some experts believe are due to the cost-saving construction that characterizes European warships. Several naval units destined for Aspides, such as the German frigate Hessen and the Belgian frigate Louis Marie, experienced problems with their onboard missile systems, which affected their availability for protection missions.

Mandate Limitations and the Cost Asymmetry of Protection

These limitations highlight that Aspides, and European navies more broadly, are materially unable to guarantee the level of protection required to restore normal trade flows in the Red Sea in the event of prolonged and intense Houthi sea denial operations. Beyond the difficulty of covering such a vast area and meeting a high demand for protection with limited assets, European forces face the challenge of countering a persistent missile and drone threat. The major issue is not the difficulty of intercepting them, but rather the cost of doing so. As Cranny-Evans and Kaushal note, and as already demonstrated during the Tanker War of the 1980s, “securing shipping requires a disproportionately resource-intensive effort on the part of the defender relative to the attacker when the latter has the advantage of proximity.”

In addition to the aforementioned need for replenishing VLS cells rotating to a friendly reloading facility, European naval units deployed must expend disproportionately expensive interceptors to engage relatively cheap targets. For example, in the initial stage of the operation, French frigates launched dozens of Aster interceptor missiles, costing €1-1.5 million each, against drones costing just a few thousand dollars. This economic imbalance is compounded by the strain such operations place on limited interceptor missile production capacity and stockpiles.

European navies have resorted to various tactical measures to reduce this asymmetric disadvantage, but these do not allow for completely solving the problem. One of the most used alternatives was the use of guns on deck or helicopters to shoot down enemy drones. However, as explained by Italian Navy officers, even though this solution allows for a drastic reduction in costs and does not deplete interceptor missiles stockpiles, it has two drawbacks: first, guns have a shorter range than missiles, so the drone is neutralized much closer to the ship, reducing reaction time and increasing risks; second, when used near merchant vessels for their protection, stray projectiles risk hitting them.

Another solution employed against UAVs has been the use of non-kinetic measures, such as jamming to disrupt the link with the operator and GNSS. An example of this was the use of the Centauros anti-drone system by the Greek Navy. Even in this case, however, these countermeasures were not completely resolutive. Like guns on deck and on helicopters, electronic warfare (EW) remains much less effective against other types of airborne threats, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). In this sense, the primary defense remained tied to the use of expensive Aster interceptor missiles, as demonstrated by the engagements of the French Navy.

In this context of persistent asymmetric disadvantage, the only sustainable solution would have been to deter Houthi attacks or to limit their operational capabilities. However, Aspides’ exclusively defensive mandate has constituted a significant limitation in this sense. In Operations Poseidon Archer and Rough Rider (2024–2025), the United States and the United Kingdom conducted repeated airstrikes on Houthi missile sites and storage facilities in an effort to degrade their offensive capacity.

The effectiveness of these operations remains contested. Some analysts argue that their impact was limited, given the Houthis’ ability to relocate or conceal assets underground. Others, such as Knights, emphasize that the operational tempo between successive attacks in the Red Sea increased considerably after the strikes, suggesting a temporary reduction in capability.

Whatever their true effect, such operations were never a viable option for the European Union, being fundamentally incompatible with Aspides’ mandate and political objectives. Indeed, the decision to establish Aspides and not join the US-led Prosperity Guardian coalition stemmed from the preference of several EU members to avoid participation in kinetic actions in Yemen, both to prevent further escalation in the region and to avoid straining relations with Iran. Yet Aspides’ exclusively defensive and therefore reactive posture has left the mission particularly exposed to prolonged sea denial campaigns, without degrading enemy capabilities, a situation that is neither sustainable nor productive in the long term.

Addressing the Limits of Aspides: Rationalization, Coordination, and Prevention

Countering air and surface threats in coastal waters and confined basins has clearly proven a particularly difficult challenge, not only for the EU. Other operations in the Red Sea, such as Prosperity Guardian, have also failed to ensure the resumption of normal maritime traffic and have encountered similar difficulties in sustaining prolonged high-end militia threats. Both the U.S. and Royal Navy have faced the combined effects of depleted interceptor stockpiles and the cost asymmetry of defending against cheap threats, along with constraints in the number of ships available to meet operational requirements. The EU, however, unlike these two actors, in choosing to maintain an exclusively defensive approach, could have placed greater emphasis on the sustainability and effectiveness of Aspides by adopting the measures that are discussed henceforth.

The limited number of available air defense vessels is an issue difficult to overcome in the short term. European navies have begun a modernization process, commissioning new warships to restore some lost capabilities, but it will take years for these vessels to enter into operation, as many are expected around 2030. However, one of the main problems highlighted by Aspides was the inability to optimize the limited assets available. Of the 21 nations participating in the mission, only a few have contributed combat vessels (Italy, France, Greece, Belgium, and the Netherlands), and only Italy, France, and Greece have deployed assets continuously since the start of the operation. Like previous EU-led operations such as Atalanta, as well as ad hoc coalitions among European states such as Operation Agenor in the Strait of Hormuz, Aspides confirms the recurring pattern of an unbalanced commitment, especially towards the countries with the greatest interests at stake. It is no coincidence that the ports most affected by the Red Sea crisis were precisely those of Greece, Italy, and France, the main contributors to the mission.

Even the overlap between different operations with European participants in the same waters contributes to straining already limited European naval capacities. For example, several EU members, such as Denmark, Finland, Greece, and the Netherlands, participate in the Prosperity Guardian coalition, providing public, logistical or active military support. This forces some European warships to rotate and reduce their participation in Aspides to contribute to other missions. The decision to launch Aspides and not expand the existing EUNAVFOR Atalanta operating in nearby waters further contributed to a dispersion of resources.

Given the difficulty of materially and economically sustaining a prolonged threat from the coast, the EU also missed several opportunities that would have allowed it to reduce the Houthis’ offensive capabilities, even without kinetic operations on Yemeni soil. Despite the ability to produce much of their arsenal locally, the Houthis remained heavily dependent on Iranian supplies for most of the weapons used in their attacks in the Red Sea. In particular, it appears highly likely that the militia imported components or ready-made weapons in the case of short- and medium-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, and Waid drones, the most sophisticated long-range UAVs used in maritime attacks. These weapons require components and know-how not available to the militia for local production. The Houthis were therefore dependent on Iranian supplies by sea or by land on the Yemen-Omani border. As Knights evidenced, this reliance, which constitutes one of the main weaknesses of the militia, was not exploited by the naval forces engaged in the Red Sea.

The EU could have reduced the offensive capabilities of the Houthis by blocking Iranian weapons and components, both by intervening directly to intercept shipping by sea, but above all by supporting the Yemeni coast guard and border forces with capacity-building initiatives and economic and material backing. In this sense, the EU has provided partial support to the coast guard, but local experts considered the level of aid “far below what is required.” Yemeni forces have demonstrated on several occasions their ability to intercept Iranian supplies if properly equipped and assisted. For its part, the EU has shown on other occasions, such as the fight against piracy in Somalia, how it is particularly adept at capacity-building initiatives and supporting local forces. Consistently backing the Yemeni Guard Coast would have allowed the EU to degrade the capabilities of the Houthis without risking regional escalation and worsening relations with Iran. It would have also allowed the EU to enhance its reputation as a maritime security actor, working cooperatively with regional actors.

Figure 2: Houthi Weapons Supply Chains. Source: Orion Policy Institute. https://orionpolicy.org/the-houthi-drone-supply-chain/

Conclusion

Beyond the specific case of the Houthis and the Red Sea, the analysis points to broader lessons. It underscores the need to improve the efficiency of EU naval operations, particularly in high-intensity contexts, while also highlighting implications for NATO as it prepares to confront the practical challenges of sustaining protracted operations in littoral waters against a well-armed, land-based opponent.

In the short and medium term, to address its limited high-end naval capabilities, the EU is called upon to better rationalize resources and improve burden-sharing. On the rationalization side, the overlapping of numerous missions involving multiple European navies in the same area of operations should be avoided because it reduces the already very limited number of warships available for each mission. From the burden-sharing perspective, once again, the particular interests of member states have constituted the main lever of contribution, leaving the level of commitment of some countries with useful naval capabilities very low, such as Germany, or inexistent, such as Spain. Increasing the level of engagement of these members is essential to increasing the number of large surface combatants available.

Even the exclusively reactive posture of Aspides has proven unsustainable given the asymmetric disadvantage of Western navies in the face of Houthi threats. In such cases, against adversaries heavily dependent on external arms supplies, the EU should combine its preference for de-escalation with its expertise in low-end capabilities, attempting to support local actors in degrading the enemy’s offensive arsenal.

Finally, the logistical and economic challenges posed by the Red Sea engagement provide an incentive to invest in specific capabilities in anticipation of possible future similar conflicts in littoral waters involving NATO. First, the need for new measures to ensure the continued availability of interceptor missiles has emerged. In this regard, the first attempts to recharge VLS at sea by the French and US navies are noteworthy. Second, the need to reduce the asymmetric cost disadvantage in the face of low-cost threats, such as drones, has been evidenced clearly. Particular attention must be given to appropriate countermeasures, such as EW and directed-energy weapons, capable of reducing defense costs.

Aspides would probably return home “on the shield” at this time, but the mission, with its difficulties, provides an opportunity to improve the European naval power.

Giacomo Leccese is an External Researcher at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CISS) at LUISS University of Rome. He also serves as a Subject Matter Expert for the course of Strategic Studies at the Department of Political Science of the same university. His main interests concern maritime security, both in its surface and submarine dimensions, European defense, and the security dynamics in the MENA region.

Featured image: EU Extends Red Sea Maritime Security Operation Through 2026, Expands Intelligence Sharing. Source: gCaptain. https://gcaptain.com/eu-extends-red-sea-maritime-security-operation-through-2026-expands-intelligence-sharing/

Gray Zone

Russia’s Irregular Maritime Statecraft in the Baltic Sea

March 27, 2026 Guest Author 1 Comment

By Joe Durigan and Craig Whiteside

Since 2022, Russia has sharply increased its employment of illegal/coercive/aggressive/deceptive (ICAD) maritime tactics in the Baltic Sea, often loosely referred to as “gray zone” activities. Assessing Russian hostility toward Europe, new NATO chief Mark Rutte recently noted that “Russia is already escalating its covert campaign against our societies” and that the alliance must be prepared for a Russian attack within five years. Whether Rutte’s assessment is correct is hard to judge, but could the dramatic increase in ICAD maritime tactics be the cause for this perception? Is Russian aggression imminent in the Baltic Sea region?

Our analysis of Russian illicit maritime tactics in the Baltic Sea since 2022 leaves us skeptical of any escalation. We argue that Russia employs irregular maritime statecraft to offset declining conventional naval power, sustain sanctioned energy exports, and pressure NATO without triggering open conflict. These nefarious activities—shadow fleet operations, undersea infrastructure sabotage, and electronic interference—are disruptive but strategically limited. While effective at harassment and signaling, they cannot deliver decisive political outcomes and increasingly risk attribution, backlash, and escalation. Putting aside Russia’s robust capabilities and malign behavior in other domains, its maritime “gray zone campaign” is a defensive, compensatory strategy chosen out of weakness, not a pathway to strategic advantage. NATO’s real challenge is managing persistent disruption without over or under-reacting—the strategic analog to the Goldilocks rule.

Russian Maritime Strategic Culture and its bad hand in the Baltic Sea

Russia’s maritime behavior in the Baltic Sea is best understood through the constraints imposed by strategic culture and geography rather than through explanations of deliberate escalation or doctrinal mastery. Historically a land‑centric power, Russia has struggled to convert naval forces into reliable political leverage, particularly in confined maritime spaces. Unlike its confidence in ground operations or information warfare, Moscow has long treated the sea as an exposed domain—one where visibility is high, control is fleeting, and conventional superiority is difficult to sustain. As a result, Russia has tended to favor ambiguity, deception, and indirect methods at sea over overt demonstrations of naval power.

That discomfort has become more pronounced since 2022. Russia’s inability to move naval forces through the Turkish Straits, its lack of reliable sea lines of communication, and a shipbuilding sector that cannot replace aging vessels—combined with the Kremlin’s persistent relegation of the maritime domain to the bottom of its strategic priorities—have all contributed to this increasingly apparent weakness. These factors, combined with NATO’s expansion to include Finland and Sweden, have transformed the Baltic from a contested maritime space into one that is effectively NATO‑enclosed. At the same time, Russia’s growing dependence on seaborne energy exports has raised the strategic importance of uninterrupted maritime access through a region where its freedom of action is sharply constrained. Moscow thus faces a paradox: it must preserve the Baltic as an economic lifeline while lacking the conventional forces needed to dominate or defend it.

In response, Russia has not developed a sophisticated maritime gray zone doctrine so much as defaulted to familiar tools often employed when power projection is risky and escalation control matters. The use of civilian vessels, deniable electronic interference, and legally ambiguous undersea activity reflects adaptation under pressure rather than confidence or strategic ambition. These methods enable harassment, signaling, and limited disruption while avoiding open confrontation, but they are poorly suited to producing durable political outcomes. Russia’s irregular maritime statecraft in the Baltic is therefore best understood as a holding action—an effort to manage decline and preserve room for maneuver from a constrained strategic position, rather than a pathway to maritime advantage.

Russia’s Three-page Playbook of Maritime Irregular Statecraft

Russia’s maritime irregular statecraft in the Baltic Sea relies on a narrow, repeatable playbook optimized for deniability and persistence rather than control or coercive leverage. Far from demonstrating doctrinal sophistication, this approach reflects the limited options available to a constrained actor operating in a NATO dominated maritime environment. At its core are three mutually reinforcing tools: the shadow fleet as both economic lifeline and operational cover, selective disruption of undersea infrastructure to exploit political sensitivity and attribution delays, and low-cost electronic interference to degrade the maritime picture in the Baltic. Together, these tactics enable harassment and signaling below the threshold of armed conflict while minimizing immediate escalation risks—but they do not scale into durable strategic advantage.

The shadow fleet sits at the center of this playbook. Economically, these vessels are indispensable to sustaining Russia’s war effort by moving sanctioned energy exports through the Baltic. Operationally, they offer deniable platforms that exploit legal ambiguities, mask movements, and complicate enforcement. Yet this dual use is inherently self-limiting. The same ships Russia depends on for revenue are increasingly visible, tracked, and exposed to interdiction, legal action, and seizure. Aggressive employment of the shadow fleet for coercive purposes therefore risks undermining the very economic lifeline it is meant to protect. As a result, the fleet functions less as a tool of escalation than as a constraint on how far Russia can push its maritime campaign.

Undersea infrastructure disruption and electronic warfare act as force multipliers within this constrained approach, but they exhibit clear diminishing returns. Pipelines, power cables, and fiberoptic links are attractive targets primarily because they are exposed and politically sensitive components of energy systems and lines of communication, not because they provide decisive leverage. Damage is typically repairable, escalation tends to remain bounded, and repetition of these tactics steadily generates political backlash alongside improved monitoring and faster attribution. Electronic interference—particularly ship based Global Positioning System (GPS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) jamming—reinforces these dynamics at low cost by degrading maritime safety and complicating enforcement in congested waters, yet such effects are fleeting and increasingly detectable. Over time, the operational signatures that these activities leave behind erode deniability rather than preserve it.

Taken together, this narrow and self-limiting playbook enables disruption without control and visibility without leverage—a strategy of management rather than momentum that raises a more fundamental question: whether Russia’s maritime gray zone campaign represents a durable form of competition with options for escalation or the early signs of strategic exhaustion.

Whither the “Gray Zone”?

Three years into Russia’s irregular maritime campaign, its strategic gains are limited and diminishing as they invite stronger legal and political backlash. These tactics do not scale well into operational advantages, and work better when maritime conventional forces can back them up. The best example of this is the Chinese navy’s support for its Coast Guard and Maritime Militia harassment of neighboring fishing vessels in East and South China Seas. Russia’s maritime capabilities are too weak to integrate power in this fashion. The backlash in Europe is producing a balancing effect, as efforts to improve attribution and legal charges against perpetrators limit Russian efforts. NATO states have boarded suspicious vessels, seized vessels involved in sabotage (e.g. MV FITBURG), and increased maritime domain awareness to identify and document future attacks. ICAD tactics are best suited for harassment, signaling, and economic necessity; they are poor tools for reversing Russia’s strategic woes.

Advocates of the gray zone concept a decade ago predicted it would eventually become the prevalent method of undermining the status quo and be difficult to combat. This does not make it an inherently low-risk strategy. The accumulation of ICAD events and the attention given to them in the post-Ukraine invasion era make it impossible for Russian acts to fly “below the radar.” Instead, the very escalation that these tactics seek to avoid becomes more likely as states react to the constant drumbeat of malign behavior.

How should NATO leverage the growing visibility of irregular maritime tactics and the certainty that Russia is behind them? First, accelerate efforts to determine attribution and expose these tactics immediately in a coordinated fashion with NATO partners. Increased maritime domain awareness at all levels is a priority; this includes investing in seabed monitoring, AIS/Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) analytics, and forensic investigation capacity. Rapid and credible attribution enables legal action, sanctions, interdiction, and future deterrence by exposure.

Secondly, NATO should transition from passive monitoring of Russia’s “shadow fleet” to a posture of active maritime containment. Under NATO’s 2025 Alliance Maritime Strategy (AMS) to uphold freedom of navigation and secure strategic trade routes, NATO should no longer treat these vessels as mere commercial anomalies. Instead, the Alliance should designate uninsured or AIS-spoofing vessels as “Navigational and Environmental Hazards,” providing the legal predicate for mandatory boardings and inspections within territorial and contiguous waters. By continuing to work towards active maritime containment, NATO can normalize interdictions that raise the insurance premiums and operational costs for Moscow’s economic lifelines, transforming its primary source of revenue into a point of strategic vulnerability.

Thirdly, NATO should operationalize its “Digital Ocean Vision” to secure critical undersea infrastructure. The defensive posture of the past three years—characterized by slow attribution and repair—is obsolete. Following the framework of Operation Baltic Sentry, NATO should scale Task Force X to deploy a persistent, autonomous undersea maritime infrastructure resiliency initiative. By integrating uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) with high-resolution acoustic sensors, NATO can create a real-time “networked ocean” that detects anomalies—such as the 2024 Motor Vessel Eagle S incident—as they occur. This capability moves NATO from a “forensic” response to a “preventative” one, utilizing automated interceptors to escort suspicious vessels away from critical nodes before damage is sustained.

Finally, NATO should institutionalize friction-as-deterrence by centralizing command authority and multi-domain surveillance within MARCOM. Russia’s irregular tactics thrive on the organizational seams between the Baltic and Arctic theaters; closing these gaps requires resourcing MARCOM to function as the singular operational hub for the Northern Flank. Under the 2025 Alliance Maritime Strategy, MARCOM should be empowered to fuse its recognized maritime picture with real-time data from the NATO Commercial Space Strategy and “Digital Ocean” uncrewed sensors, allowing the Alliance to immediately out-signal Russian electronic interference and GPS jamming. By utilizing high-intensity exercises like Freezing Winds 2025 to wargame integrated, rapid-response ICAD counter-tactics, NATO ensures that every Russian hybrid act is met with an immediate, pre-authorized operational pushback. This centralized posture shifts the burden of escalation back to the Kremlin, forcing Moscow to choose between a conventional naval confrontation it cannot win or a strategic retreat from a monitored and controlled maritime gray zone.

This is already happening in Hong Kong of all places, where Finland has pressured China to detain and prosecute civilian ship Captain Wan Wnguo, accused of dragging one of the ship’s anchors across several underwater cables in 2023 and causing $41 million in damage. Ironically, the ship had just completed the first run from China to Kaliningrad along the Northern Sea Route, a potent symbol of Russian and Chinese cooperation. China has cooperated with Finland to date, and the trial is set for this month.

Conclusion

Russia’s expansion of maritime irregular statecraft in the Baltic Sea Region is a compensatory strategy born of weakness, not strength. As Russia’s conventional naval power has eroded, accelerated by maritime losses in the Black Sea and NATO’s expansion, Moscow has turned to deniable, low-cost, maritime subversion to protect its economic lifelines, pressure NATO, and shape escalation dynamics without triggering open war.

Russia’s activities in the Baltic are best understood as a holding action by a constrained power. It enables disruption and delay but not control. These ICAD tactics at sea might provoke below thresholds of war, but they say more about managing decline, protecting lifelines, and shaping escalation in a world where ambiguity is shrinking, not increasing as gray zone proponents claim. While disruptive and tactically clever, these methods cannot compensate for declining conventional power and become less effective as NATO improves attribution, coordination, and resilience. This in turn will frustrate Russia’s ability to play a weak hand as it prioritizes provocative tactics over creating an effective strategy to improve its strategic and economic position in a post-Ukraine War future.

Joseph P. Durigan is a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy and a recent graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His master’s thesis was titled “The Gray Zone Surge: Russian Maritime Subversion in the Baltic Sea.”

Craig Whiteside is a professor of National Security Affairs for the US Naval War College resident program at the Naval Postgraduate School. His recent book is titled Nonstate Special Operations: Capabilities and Effects and he has written on the strategic failures of the gray zone concept.

Featured Image: Baltic Sea Exercise 2023. (U.S. Navy photo)

Europe

Russia’s Strategic Brown Water Capabilities: A NATO Blind Spot?

February 2, 2026 Guest Author 2 Comments

By Helge Adrians

Russia is working to integrate inland waterways more deeply into its deterrence and defense posture. In Western contexts, this area of maritime geography is usually termed the ‘brown water zone.’ A harbinger of that development was the October 2015 strike against positions of Islamist groups in Syria, carried out by small warships in the Caspian Sea using land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs). Russia not only demonstrated a new level of operational reach (of over¹ 1,500 kilometers), but also revealed a singular capability that remains unmatched to this day – executing deep precision strikes (DPS) from inland waters.²

Indications that the Russian Navy could carry out such an operation from lakes and possibly even rivers had emerged a few years prior. As part of the State Armaments Program for 2007-2015, Russia started outfitting many of its naval vessels with a new, long-awaited universal vertical launch system (VLS). Like the US MK 41 VLS — which has been in use since 1986— the Russian 3S14 VLS is designed to accommodate different types of missiles (rather than using specialized tubes for each missile type, as was previously the case on Soviet and Russian warships)³. The outfitting included river-capable Buyan-class corvettes, of which a modified batch with an eight-cell VLS was built from 2010—the Buyan-M class, sometimes also called Sviyazhsk-class.⁴ Two years later, the 3M14 LACM—a variant of the Kalibr family of missiles—was introduced on surface warships. One of the first units was the Gepard-class frigate Dagestan, which is part of the Caspian Flotilla. The formation also received the first three Buyan-M class corvettes, commissioned in 2013.

The reinforcement of the Caspian Flotilla was no coincidence. It was closely linked to the naval build-up of the three former Soviet republics Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan from the mid-2000s. The motivations behind this trend were twofold – a growing interest amongst the littoral states in exploiting the Caspian Sea’s economic potential, and the ambiguity surrounding its legal status at that time, particularly concerning maritime borders and access rights. Despite its scale resembling a marginal sea, the Caspian Sea is in practical terms an inland lake.⁵

Russia’s military port of Kaspiysk on the Caspian Sea. (Google Earth image via TWZ.com)

Although Western observers were aware of these two developments — ‘Kalibrization’ of the Russian Fleet and strengthening the combat power of forces of an inland water body — it seems they failed to derive the correct insights. For example, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, concluded with the United States in 1987, prohibited land-based medium-range missiles, but not sea-based ones. This explains why Russia’s strike in October 2015 caused such significant surprise. As is often the case with such events, many of the subsequent analyses focused on the political implications and the technologies used, while paying less attention to the underlying conceptual framework.

New strategic importance of Russia’s inland waters

Russia’s inland waterways hold strategic significance. This is due to three reasons: first, the country has a large number of rivers spread across its entire territory; second, many of them are long and wide, well-suited for transporting cargo; and third, most of the rivers lie entirely within Russian borders, making them less accessible to Western intelligence. That may have been one of the reasons why the Soviet Union connected the waters west of the Urals in the mid-20th century. At the center is the Volga River, which flows into the Caspian Sea. Through the construction of canals, the Volga was also linked to the Baltic Sea and the White Sea in the North, and to the Black Sea in the South.⁶ This network is most commonly referred to as the Unified Deep Water System of European Russia (UDWS).

Map of the United Deep Waterway System of Russia. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

From the earliest days of the Cold War, there were discussions within NATO about the military utilization of the UDWS. However, this was more about the possibility of moving single warships, especially submarines, between the northern and the southern flank covertly and thus protected from NATO attacks. To this day, Russia maintains naval shipbuilding at several shipyards along the Volga River. Until the 1990s, even Kilo-class submarines were constructed at a facility there.

Fitting river-capable corvettes with 3M14 LACMs and using them from the Caspian Sea has fundamentally altered strategic assessments of the UDWS, from a useful logistical corridor to an inland naval bastion. However, the capability to carry out DPS from such an unexpected location seems less the outcome of deliberate planning. It was more a consequence of budgetary limitations as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the Russian financial crisis in 1998.⁷ Faced with the need to maintain its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), Russia was forced to make cuts in surface fleet development. Enhancing the operational reach of so-called third-rank combatants like corvettes, traditionally used for operations in the littoral ‘green water,’ or as they say in the Russian Navy – ‘near sea’ zone – emerged as a pragmatic and creative compromise, particularly against the backdrop of the INF Treaty, which was in effect until 2019.^8,9 Amongst these are the aforementioned Buyan-M class and its more advanced successor, the Karakurt-class, of which several examples have been commissioned since 2018.

Searching for safe spaces

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, naval platforms became part of the ground campaign through the use of 3M14 LACMs. Initially, such strikes were launched from the Black Sea. By end of December 2022, the Caspian Sea—far away from the frontlines—had also become a launch area for these operations. As Ukraine gradually managed to keep the Black Sea Fleet at distance through a combination of shore-based anti-ship missiles, sea mines, and later—with growing intensity since summer 2023 at the latest—uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), the strategic relevance of the Caspian Sea grew. It not only served as a safe space for continued DPS but also as a hub for repairing and replacing damaged ships.

The expanded use of uncrewed systems in the war against Ukraine plus Western intentions to acquire such platforms have made secure maritime areas increasingly vital for the Russian Navy. However, those are scarce. During the Cold War, Soviet fleets relied on an ‘area denial’-strategy (AD),¹⁰ also known as the ‘Bastion’-concept with regard to the defense of the bases of the Northern and the Pacific Fleet where Russia continues to concentrate its SSBNs. The extended defense of this protected space can be described as an ‘anti-access’-approach (A2). Long before the term ‘A2/AD’ was coined by Western analysts in 2003 and became a buzz word from 2014, Moscow had already developed the necessary capabilities as a lesson learnt from World War II (mainly a large long-range aviation and submarine force).^11,¹² These platforms threatened opposing surface warships, which could be detected and targeted before reaching Soviet positions. Even fleets in marginal seas were enabled to perform A2/AD. A renaissance came with the introduction of various land-based long-range missile systems from around 2012.¹³ For a long time, Western nations appeared to have little means to counter these A2/AD capabilities. Unmanned systems may offer a solution, as the Ukrainian armed forces have repeatedly demonstrated in the air and in the maritime domain. Due to their small size and design, uncrewed systems have low signatures. Consequently, they are frequently able to penetrate Russian defense layers unrecognized. As a result, the retreat of warships into protected areas under full Russian control—including the UDWS—appears to be the only viable option to safeguard against new asymmetric threats such as USVs and uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs).

In light of this, the Russian Navy has adapted for better protection, starting with the creation of a new naval district for the Sea of Azov in July 2023. Situated north of the Black Sea, it is a shallow shelf sea accessible primarily via the Kerch Strait, which Russia has controlled since annexing Crimea in March 2014. In the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian forces succeeded in closing the gap between Donbas and Crimea. Since then, Russia has gained full control over the Sea of Azov. One of the main reasons for this approach may have been that there is access to the UDWS via the Don River, which flows into the north-west. In the Sea of Azov, Russian warships are less exposed to Ukrainian attacks than in the Black Sea. This made the maritime enclave appear suitable, amongst other things, as a launch area for corvettes with LACMs.

Efforts to identify secure maritime spaces were also observed in other regions: in the east of the Baltic Sea, the Russian Navy appears to be planning to open up Lake Ladoga—situated north of St. Petersburg—as a fallback area for small warships. Covering nearly 18,000 square kilometers, it is the largest inland body of water in Europe. Since Finland’s defeat in the Second World War, it has been completely surrounded by Russian territory¹⁴ and became part of the UDWS. During the Cold War, the lake’s remoteness made it a strategically valuable site for naval testing, playing a role comparable to that of the Caspian Sea. Now, according to Russian media, it is set to become a component of Moscow’s deterrence and defense posture vis-à-vis NATO. For this, two Karakurt-class corvettes of the Baltic Fleet were deployed to Lake Ladoga for several days in September 2023, followed by two Buyan-M class vessels for a similar duration in September 2024.¹⁵ While in the first year the focus lay on navigation training and surveying former naval mooring sites repurposed by Russian state-owned defense companies, the second year was reportedly marked by notional launches of 3M14 LACMs as part of the major naval exercise Okean 2024.¹⁶

In Russian media, there have been discussions about bolstering forces for brown water operations. This was sparked by a March 2024 announcement from the then Russian Minister of Defense, stating plans to reconstitute a Dnieper Flotilla by the end of the year—intended to take over riverine combat duties from the ground forces. Such formations have existed intermittently since the 18th century, most recently until 1951. The Soviet Union also operated similar groupings on other major rivers. Russia has taken over some of them. The last major command was the Amur Flotilla at the Russian-Chinese border in the Far East: it was transferred to the Border Service in 1995 and formally disbanded in 1998. Apart from that, a sizable shipyard still exists on the Amur River, which also builds Karakurt-class corvettes. However, it is not yet known to what degree these will be deployed from there and whether Russia intends to build up further riverine units.

Amur River basin. (Graphic via Wikimedia Commons)

Decisive, complementary impact without salvos

The extent to which the Russian Navy attributes a strategic role to inland waters is currently connected to the deployment of Buyan-M and Karakurt-class corvettes. Nevertheless, the presence of these vessels beyond the usual duration of a transit is better understood as a sign that changes might be underway, rather than definitive evidence that a change has already taken place. This is because, although the corvettes can strike far-off targets using 3M14 LACMs, they are limited to carrying just eight per ship. However, in conjunction with long-range and decoy UAVs that could saturate air defenses, these assets enable surgical strikes or DPS, respectively, against select targets, particularly critical infrastructure. This reflects the ‘Strategic Operation for the Destruction of Critically Important Targets’-approach outlined in Russian military theory around 2010. The concept is to discourage an adversary from escalating or continuing a conflict by selectively destroying high-value targets, aiming to impact political or societal morale without causing mass casualties. This behavior has been repeatedly demonstrated in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Such effects could also be achieved through ground- or air-based systems. In this context, warships should be seen as a supplement — particularly when other assets are absent or limited. One example is the Russian part of Karelia, an area east of Lake Ladoga, where Moscow only recently began expanding its ground force presence in 2024, following Finland’s accession to NATO in 2023, leaving the area initially lacking adequate deterrence capabilities.¹⁷ Even though Lake Ladoga is seasonally unusable due to ice cover, it can nonetheless be utilized temporarily for defensive or deterrent purposes.

The potential use of LACMs also serves to demonstrate the Russian Navy’s relevance in land operations—an aspect that should not be underestimated. Here, the focus is less on quantity but more on quality; internally, this reinforces the Navy’s standing within the Russian armed forces and political leadership, while externally, it contributes to strategic ambiguity by signaling that all branches of the military are capable of delivering long-range effects.

Closing NATO’s blindspot

Striking land targets from lakes offers several advantages. In addition to the protection against asymmetric threats, it also provides cover from reconnaissance and targeting by enemy missile systems. This is due to the stealthy design of the Buyan-M and Karakurt-class corvettes. When moving or hiding near shorelines, spotting, tracking, and targeting them becomes difficult. Moreover, engaging warships requires different types of munitions than those used against land-based systems like rocket launchers—specifically, warheads capable of penetrating hulls or superstructures to cause significant damage or achieve a kill. Most Western anti-ship missiles have limited range, typically only a few hundred kilometers, and travel at subsonic speeds over longer distances, making them easier to detect and intercept. Additionally, some anti-ship missiles designed for blue-water targets may struggle with targets amongst the cluttered shorelines of lakes and rivers.

While NATO may not prioritize countering Russian warships on lakes in a broader conflict scenario, the risk remains significant. Ukraine’s response offers a blueprint of what can be done. On the one hand, obstructing passage through chokepoints such as straits or locks can effectively trap warships or prevent them from entering. Since the start of the war, Ukraine has sought to block the Kerch Strait; for example, in July 2024, it targeted the nearby ferry terminal at Kavkaz from the air. According to the Ukrainian Navy, Moscow has withdrawn all warships from the Sea of Azov as a result.

On the other hand, the destruction of port infrastructure can disrupt the resupply of naval forces, particularly the reloading of missiles, which can only be done pier-side. Ukraine successfully struck Russian warships in the captured port of Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov in March 2022 as well as in the naval base at Kaspiysk on the Caspian Sea in November 2024. In the latter, both Gepard-class frigates and a Buyan-M class corvette would have been affected.

Ukrainian drones strike the naval base of the Russian Caspian Flotilla in November 2024. (Footage via Twitter/OSINT Technical)

There are also lessons to be learned from Russia’s tactics: in August 2025, it launched an attack on a Ukrainian reconnaissance vessel deep in a tributary of the Danube River. The vessel was reportedly underway in Ukrainian waters, just meters away from the opposite Romanian bank. Remarkably, Russia succeeded in covertly deploying a USV about 40 kilometers into the Danube to conduct the kamikaze strike, while coordinating a UAV to monitor the mission from the air (which could also have fired on the ship).

In principle, it seems possible that the Russian Navy may seek to enhance the strategic role of inland waters. The deployment of Kilo II-class submarines or the loading of 3M14 LACMs in the containerized Club-K version¹⁸ onto civilian riverboats are both conceivable, though unlikely due to the logistical complexity involved (because of, for example, river depths¹⁹ and currents²⁰ as well as satellite connections). Instead, Russia is more likely to focus on better protecting its Buyan-M and growing Karakurt-class corvettes. Increasing their numbers and distributing them when at sea or over several supporting sites make detection significantly more difficult. This would allow Russia to maintain a strategic reserve for DPS.

Conclusion

NATO should not underestimate Russia’s strategic brown water capabilities. The same applies to Japan and South Korea in the event that Moscow, contrary to current indications, intends to use the Amur as a launch area to defend the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk. Therefore, it is essential to prepare doctrinally, enhance surveillance techniques, and develop effective countermeasures. This will require more unconventional thinking—for example, the dropping of sea mines, USVs and UUVs from the air or the arming of partisans with portable anti-ship missiles such as the Swedish RBS-17. New doctrine and capabilities can effectively account for this important yet underappreciated dimension of Russian naval influence.

Commander Helge Adrians, German Navy, M.A., is a Visiting Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

References

1. 3M14 should be able to fly up to 2,500 kilometers, according to [U.S.] State Department, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (2020): 2020 Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report), online in: https://2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-Adherence-to-and-Compliance-with-Arms-Control-Nonproliferation-and-Disarmament-Agreements-and-Commitments-Compliance-Report-1.pdf (PDF file), June 2020 (accessed: 26.12.2024), p. 14 and 16.

2. The distance from the Caspian Sea to the targets in Syria was given by the official Russian side as ‘nearly 1,500 kilometers’, cf. TASS (2015): Caspian Flotilla ships fire 26 cruise missiles on IS targets in Syria — Defense Minister [sic!], online in: https://tass.com/defense/826919, 07.10.2015 (accessed: 18.12.2024).

3. Cf. Bogdanov/Kramnik (2018), p. 6.

4. Cf. Office of Naval Intelligence (2015): The Russian Navy. Historic Transition, Washington: N.p., p. 20.

5. For decades, the Soviet Union and Iran—the Caspian’s only littoral states until 1991—neglected to define its legal status. Only in 2018 did the five current coastal states reach an initial agreement (i.e., the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, also known as ‘Teheran Convention’), concluding that the Caspian Sea should be treated as neither a sea nor a lake in legal terms.

6. Cf. Jaghdani, Tinoush Jamali/Ketabchy, Mehdi (2023): The Strategic Significance of the Russian Volga River System, in: Russian Analytical Digest, Vol. 304, pp. 22-27, here: p. 22.

7. Cf. Mommsen, Klaus A. R. (2020): The Russian Navy. “Russia’s pride, strength, and asset”, in: Routledge Handbook of Naval Strategy and Security, edited by Krause, Joachim/Bruns, Sebastian (2018), Abingdon/New York: Routledge, pp. 305-314,
here: p. 307.

8. Cf. Kofman, Michael (2023): Evolution of Russian naval strategy, in: The sea in Russian strategy, edited by Monaghan, Andrew/ Connolly, Richard (2023), Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 94-123, here: p. 109.

9. For example, the delays in delivering the first two Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates in 2015 prompted a shift in focus toward building Karakurt-class corvettes instead, cf. РИА Новости (2015): Минобороны заявило, что ОПК “немножко сорвал” срок сдачи двух фрегатов, online in: https://ria.ru/20151224/1348076684.html, 24.12.2015 (accessed: 19.08.2025).

10. Cf. Ushirogata, Keitaro (2025 in English; 2019 in Japanese): Global Maritime Military Strategy. 1980-2023, Singapore: Springer, p. 128 ff.

11. This was related to the fact that the US developed a new strategy to deprive Chinese A2/AD-capabilities. Russia and Iran were also credited with such capabilities, making the issue more relevant for European NATO members, especially as there were fears after the occupation and annexation of Crimea that Russia could do the same with the Baltic states and make defence more difficult by activating A2/AD-systems, cf. Simón, Luis (2016): A European Perspective on Anti-Access/Area Denial and the Third Offset Strategy, online in: https://warontherocks.com/2016/05/a-european-perspective-on-anti-accessarea-denial-and-the-third-offset-strategy/, 03.05.2016 (accessed: 27.08.2025).

12. Cf. Gorschkow, Sergej (1976): Seemacht Sowjetunion, edited by Opitz, Eckardt (1978), Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, p. 266.

13. In 2012, the S400 air defence system, which entered service in 2007, was stationed in Kaliningrad—the first of the three missile systems primarily linked to A2/AD, cf. Dalsjö, Robert/Berglund, Christofer/Jonsson, Michael (2019): Bursting the Bubble. Russian A2/AD in the Baltic Sea Region. Capabilities, Countermeasures, and Implications (FOI-R–4651–SE), p. 27. The other two systems are Iskander (both the -M and -K version) against land targets, and Bastion-P against sea targets, cf. ibid., p. 10.

14. In late 1939, the Soviet Union demanded territory from Finland, citing the security of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) as a primary justification. After Finland refused, the Soviet Union invaded in November. The war ended in March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty and the formerly shared Lake Ladoga became entirely surrounded by Soviet territory. Though contested during the 1941–1944 war, this control held. This outcome was formally recognized in 1947 with the Paris Peace Treaty that formally established Lake Ladoga as a Soviet inland lake under international law.

15. It was the Sovetsk (hull number: 252) and the Odintsovo (252), see the report ‘Baltic Fleet on Ladoga’ in: https://vpk.name/en/ 784930_baltic-fleet-on-ladoga.html 16.10.2023 (accessed: 24.11.2024). This is the English translation of the original Russian article by Timur Gainutdinov, published on Krasnaya Zvezda. The original text was published online but is not accessible from within Germany, cf. http://redstar.ru/na-sedoj-ladoge/. However, the Norwegian military blogger Thore Are Iversen uploaded the article and another English translation to X; see corresponding images at https://x.com/The_Lookout_N/status/ 1714640171176493411, 18.10.2023 (accessed: 27.12.2024).

16. One them could be the former naval base Lakhdenpokhya in the north west of the lake, cf. Ryabov, Kirill (2023): “Karakurt” on Lake Ladoga, online in: https://en.topwar.ru/228351-karakurty-na-ladozhskom-ozere.html, 19.10.2023 (accessed: 24.11.2024). Otherwise, the corvettes were moored at the floating bridge in Priozersk, as satellite images showed, see the Tweet by Thore Are Iversen in: https://x.com/The_Lookout_N/status/1833800057469952169, 11.09.2024 (accessed: 28.12.2024).

17. It was only in April 2024 that Russia announced its intention to station three missile artillery battalions equipped with the Iskander-M system in Karelia, see report ‘В Карелии сформирована отдельная ракетная бригада с ОТК «Искандер-М»0‘, in: https://iz.ru/1684603/2024-04-19/v-karelii-sformirovana-otdelnaia-raketnaia-brigada-s-otk-iskander-m, 19.04.2024 (accessed: 12.01.2025).

18. However, ‘[t]he current status of the Club-K system is unclear, and there is no public evidence that russia [sic!] has commenced serial production of this system’, cf. Syngaivska, Sofiia (2024): New Icebreaker Showcases russia’s [sic!] Advanced Naval Technology, Allegedly Suitable for the Kalibr Missiles, online in: https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/new_icebreaker_ showcases_russias_advanced_naval_technology_allegedly_suitable_for_the_kalibr_missiles-10743.html, 05.06.2024 (accessed: 26.08.2025).

19. Kilo-class submarines were usually deployed on barges across rivers, see the following undated photo in https://imgur.com/a/ lYRJeAO, 12.12.2023 (accessed: 04.01.2025). The link was shared in a discussion on Reddit, see https://www.reddit.com/r/ submarines/comments/18g02tl/how_submarines_built_in_nizhny_novgorod_were/, n.d. (presumably 2024; accessed: 04.01.2025). In 2021, a decommissioned November-class nuclear submarine was even transported via the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal, see https://paluba.media/news/11667, 21.09.2021 (accessed: 16.01.2025).

20. Even smaller warships are therefore accompanied by tugs, as can be seen in a video showing the Karakurt-class corvette Taifun (805) on its way to Lake Ladoga in 2019, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ7uYoh-hXg&t=1s, 20.05.2019 (accessed: 03.01.2025).

Featured Image: Buyan-M-class corvette of the Russian fleet, December 2022. Russia. (Photo via Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation)

Europe

Small Craft, Big Impact: Ukraine’s Naval War and the Rise of New-Tech Warships

June 3, 2025 Guest Author 1 Comment

By David Kirichenko

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shocked the international order. What surprised the world even more was Ukraine’s ability to resist. While many in the West believed Ukraine would only hold out for a few weeks, the war has now entered its fourth year. Ukraine has relied on agility and innovation – especially in its use of drones and battlefield technology – to fend off Russian forces. This technological edge has extended beyond land warfare to the sea.

Over the past few years, Ukraine’s growing use of naval drones has pushed both sides to rapidly adapt, accelerating the race for countermeasures and maritime innovation. NATO would do well to study Ukraine’s approach as it prepares for the future of warfare at sea. Rear Admiral James Parkin, the Royal Navy’s director of development, notes that in 28 maritime battles, the larger fleet won all but three. Parkin believed that larger fleets win, but Ukraine has changed that paradigm, for now. The future of naval warfare is here and Ukraine is demonstrating what the future looks like.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the U.K., stated, “I have repeated many times that the nature of modern warfare has changed and continues to change.” Zaluzhnyi added, “The nature of modern warfare is far from what NATO is now operating.”

Ukraine’s Naval Lessons

At the outset of the war, Ukraine’s navy was virtually nonexistent, having lost most of its fleet when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Its only major warship, the frigate Hetman Sahaidachny, was scuttled by Ukrainian forces in February 2022 to prevent its capture. Yet through asymmetric tactics – naval drones, coastal missile strikes, and aerial attacks – Ukraine has transformed the Black Sea battlefield, forcing Russia into retreat and reclaiming strategic control of key waters around Ukraine’s coast.

Serhii Kuzan, chair of the think tank Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center and a former adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, explained that even before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine understood it could not match Russia in conventional naval strength.¹As a result, it adopted an asymmetric strategy focused on coastal missile systems, small vessels, and air support. After 2022, sea drones were added to this concept and have since become the navy’s primary strike weapon at sea. These unmanned systems emerged out of necessity, filling the gap left by the absence of a traditional fleet.

Ukraine is now rebuilding its navy around a fleet of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), making sea drones central to its maritime strategy. When Russia attempted to blockade Ukrainian shipping, Kyiv responded swiftly with sea drone strikes. Even after the Russian Navy retreated from occupied Crimea to the safety of its mainland ports, Ukrainian USVs continued to harass and damage its fleet.

Following the sea drone offensive in 2023, Former US Navy Admiral James George Stavridis noted, “We’re at a juncture in military evolution akin to the game-changers like Agincourt or Pearl Harbor. Expensive manned surface warships now face existential threats from affordable drones.” The Ukrainians issued a warning in August 2023 that “There are no more safe waters or peaceful harbors for you in the Black and Azov Seas.” The Russians eventually learned to heed that warning and hid from Ukraine’s sea drones. According to Roy Gardiner, an open source weapons researcher and former Canadian Armed Forces officer, “These asymmetric victories have forced the relocation of the Russian Fleet to the eastern Black Sea, and broke the blockade to reopen the vital grain export routes.”

Ukraine’s drones have even achieved the unprecedented. By January 2025, modified Magura V5 sea drones armed with heat-seeking missiles shot down two Russian Mi-8 helicopters and damaged a third off the coast of Crimea – marking the first time a naval drone successfully downed enemy aircraft. In May 2025, Ukraine stunned the world by using sea drones equipped with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, each worth about $300,000 to shoot down two Russian fighter jets, each worth $50 million. The Ukrainian sea drones themselves are worth only several hundred thousand dollars. HI Sutton, a naval warfare expert wrote, “The success of Ukraine’s uncrewed surface drones (USVs) cannot be overstated. They are rewriting the rules of naval warfare.”

A Magura V5 maritime drone. (Photo by Daniyar Sarsenov/Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine)

Ukrainian forces are increasingly adapting these drones for multi-role capabilities, equipping them with missile launchers and advanced payloads. Ukraine has effectively turned its USVs into robotic drone carriers capable of launching explosive FPV drones at Russian coastal targets. One of Ukraine’s latest sea drones, can launch up to four quadcopter First-Person View (FPV) drones and may carry naval mines, enabling complex multi-phase attacks. Ukrainian intelligence recently announced that their sea drones have been upgraded to carry over a ton of explosives and can now operate across distances exceeding 1,000 kilometers (about 621 miles), significantly expanding their strike range and lethality across the Black Sea. “We completely blocked the Russian Black Sea fleet in the water area near the port of Novorossiysk,” said Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence (HUR). He added that said the Russian fleet can no longer come out to the open waters.

“The cost of USVs such as Magura V5 and Sea Baby is about $250,000, which is inexpensive relative to their significant tactical and strategic success,” said Gardiner. “With naval targets gone from the western Black Sea, some Ukrainian USVs have transitioned to FPV carriers and launched successful attacks on multiple radars and air defense systems in Crimea.”

According to Kuzan, sea drones have emerged as one of Ukraine’s most effective tools against the Russian fleet. Ukrainian unmanned systems have struck Russian ships and boats 21 times, with 10 vessels confirmed destroyed and several others severely damaged. As a result, Russian naval forces have lost the initiative at sea and are now largely confined to operating near the ports of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea and Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland. Kuzan highlighted that these drone strikes have also enabled Ukraine to reopen the grain corridor despite Russia’s withdrawal from the agreement, effectively restoring maritime trade.

Despite Ukraine’s impressive string of successes at sea, Russia has begun mounting a more effective defense. According to Ukrainian Navy Commander Oleksiy Neizhpapa, Moscow has built a multi-layered system around key locations like Sevastopol Bay, including long-, medium-, and short-range detection zones designed to identify and destroy incoming sea drones. “In the past, we could easily enter Sevastopol Bay with our drones,” Neizhpapa said.

“Now it’s not so simple because the enemy has established a tiered defense system.” In response, Ukraine is working to upgrade its unmanned systems with more advanced weaponry and modular designs that can adapt to rapidly evolving threats. Russia has adapted but by bringing out its ships into the open sea, meaning that the success rate of Ukraine’s sea drones has also dropped. According to Gardiner, “Naval vessels have been equipped with thermal vision systems to better combat Ukrainian USV nighttime attacks.”

The naval drone war is also becoming more symmetric: Russian forces are beginning to deploy their own sea drones. “They are gearing up for it,” Neizhpapa warned, “so we are preparing not only to deploy drones against the enemy but also to defend against them.”

Gregory Falco, an autonomous systems and cybersecurity expert at Cornell University, commented on the design balance between sophistication and scale. According to Falco,

“The sea is a highly dynamic environment so it has been a more difficult domain to design robust and reliable systems for. Given Ukraine’s people-constrained navy, they have relied on unmanned systems which Ukraine has adeptly made cost efficiently and therefore largely disposable. The sophistication of this technology right now is less important than its scale and cost. Scale for drones is what will help win wars.”

The war in the Black Sea shows how asymmetric innovation can shift the balance of power. Despite having no traditional fleet, Ukraine has dealt major blows to a superior naval force using low-cost, adaptable technology. Dmitry Gorenburg, a researcher with the Center for Naval Analyses, remarked that,

“Russia has been forced to erect barriers for harbor protection, which have been relatively effective. But Ukraine showed that it could still damage Russian ships at sea. In the future, the cost asymmetry between cheap drones and expensive ships will mean that even a low success rate will prove highly damaging to naval forces, including Russia. The advantage of having a powerful navy will thus be somewhat decreased.”

However, Kuzan stresses that drones alone cannot provide full control over maritime space. A balanced navy remains essential. Looking ahead, Ukraine’s future fleet will likely combine Ada-class corvettes, missile boats, and coastal defense systems, with sea drones continuing to serve as the main offensive force.

Adaptability and Technology

Moreover, both China and Russia “are surging ahead in the realm of small drones, while the United States moves at a relatively glacial pace,” the Modern War Institute at West Point noted in a March 2024 report. Deborah Fairlamb, founding partner of Ukraine-focused venture capital firm Green Flag Ventures said, “I still believe that the West really does not understand how much warfare has changed.” Fairlamb pointed out the rapid technological advancements on the battlefield, increased mass production, and the decreasing cost of effective weaponry – such as $500 drones that can take out a $5m tank, a $30m radar system.”

Now, the U.S. Navy is embracing unmanned systems with urgency, spurred by lessons from Ukraine’s naval drone success and asymmetrical threats like the Houthis in the Red Sea. Ukraine is already working closely with artificial intelligence (AI) and is rapidly reshaping modern warfare, particularly through machine vision in drones and ground platforms, allowing for autonomous targeting. Ukraine is at the forefront of this transformation, with over 90 percent of AI military technologies coming from domestic developers, including swarming drone systems.

Ukraine is placing innovation at the heart of its defense strategy, leveraging homegrown technologies to stay ahead on the battlefield. Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s minister of digital transformation, emphasized this approach in a speech at the The NATO-Ukraine Defense Innovators Forum:

“In Ukraine, we fight with innovations made in Ukraine. It is a constant work, a continuous R&D process, solving logistical problems with components and looking for solutions five steps ahead. Ukraine is already the best R&D center for any innovation. Today we get a technology for testing, and tomorrow we will scale it hundreds of times.”

Ukraine’s defense tech sector is accelerating rapidly under the pressure of war, driving battlefield innovation in drones, robotics, AI, electronic warfare, and demining systems. Platforms like the government-backed Brave1 fast-track promising technologies – by providing funding, testing, and streamlined certification, bypassing the slow procurement systems common in the West. “I always tell our American and other international partners: if your drone hasn’t been tested in Ukraine, it’s still just a toy,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian member of parliament.

Economics of War

Modern warfare is now a battle of economics and scale, where the key metric is no longer troop numbers, but the cost and quantity of systems deployed. Cheap, one-way drones costing under $1,000 have become central to the fighting in Ukraine and elsewhere, capable of destroying far more expensive targets. As Christian Brose noted in The Kill Chain, U.S. military dominance has long relied on costly platforms like tanks, stealth fighters, and aircraft carriers. First-person view drones invert that model, using cheap, smart, networked machines to challenge the traditional military-industrial complex. As the U.S. continues to rely on high-cost systems, adversaries like China, Russia, and even non-state actors are leveraging mass-produced, inexpensive drones and missiles to inflict outsized damage at a fraction of the cost.

Andy Yakulis, a former Army special operations commander, highlighted how expensive the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is at $13 billion, with other platforms, “such as the F-35, costing between $80m to $100m per aircraft. While the U.S. was building such systems, China has been focused on cheaper systems that, in mass, can destroy these large systems.” Yakulis further pointed out that in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy has been using two $1 million missiles to shoot down Houthi drones that cost just $40,000 each. That means the cost of the drone is only about two percent of the price of the missiles needed to destroy it.

“Our adversaries use $10,000 one-way drones that we shoot down with $2 million missiles,” said Army Gen. Bryan P. Fenton. “That cost benefit curve is upside down.” The Houthis in under two months were also able to shoot down $200 million worth of U.S. drones in the Yemen conflict.

Taiwan is Taking Note

Taiwan has also recently unveiled its first uncrewed surface vessel (USV), the Endeavor Manta, developed specifically for naval defense in the Taiwan Strait. Built by CSBC Corporation, the vessel is designed for swarm operations, can carry light torpedoes and a warhead for kamikaze-style strikes, and includes autonomous navigation, AI target recognition, and anti-hijacking features. Inspired by Ukraine’s use of naval drones, the Manta is part of Taiwan’s broader strategy to counter Chinese military superiority through low-cost, asymmetric warfare, joining a growing global trend of using drones as force multipliers in modern conflicts. Alessio Patalano, Professor of War and Strategy at King’s College, London, noted that relying on weapons that are cheaper and easier to acquire will be critical to helping Taiwan defend itself against a potential Chinese invasion.

The Endeavor Manta USV during the launch event held in the port of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. (Photo via Taiwan Ministry of National Defense)

Rather than attempting to match China’s drone production, Hunter Keeley of the U.S. Marine Corps suggested Taiwan should adopt Ukraine’s targeted approach: deploying naval drones and missiles in focused, intelligence-led strikes near expected landing zones. A limited, layered Hellscape – centered on drones, jammers, and mobile sensors – could significantly disrupt PLA amphibious operations and buy Taiwan critical time in the opening stages of a conflict.

According to Kuzan, “Taiwan already benefits from U.S. support and has its own advanced defense industry, which is testing both surface and underwater maritime drones. For example, Taiwan’s Smart Dragon underwater drone is reportedly armed with torpedo systems.” He believes that incorporating torpedoes into Ukrainian sea drones could be the next step in their development. Kuzan remarked that, “If the opportunity and necessity arise, Ukraine could potentially sell or exchange its military technologies with Taiwan. This would be mutually beneficial, allowing both countries to enhance their capabilities.”

China and Russia Prepare

Russia is also taking notes. While it has significantly lagged behind Ukraine in naval drone warfare, it is now preparing for the future at sea. At the Army-2024 defense show, Russia unveiled the Murena-300S, a new naval drone resembling Ukraine’s successful sea drones. With a 500 km range, the fast and compact USV is built for coastal missions such as reconnaissance, mine-laying, and strike operations, possibly with a large explosive payload. The Murena appears to feature a Starlink antenna, suggesting Russia is seeking to match Ukraine’s real-time drone control capabilities.

The Russians have learned hard lessons from Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare and are now applying those insights more rapidly. Russia is creating unmanned systems regiments within its Navy that will integrate aerial, ground, and maritime drones to carry out reconnaissance and strike missions across all fleets. These new units, equipped with systems like Orlans, Lancets, FPVs, and USVs, are expected to form the backbone of the Navy’s unmanned component, with deployments planned across the European, Pacific, Caspian, and Dnieper naval forces.

At the same time, Russia is steadily advancing toward the development of AI-enabled autonomous drone swarms. It is investing heavily in AI research, both domestically and through partnerships with countries like Iran and China. Russia is focusing its efforts on leveraging cheap, scalable drone technology to overwhelm adversaries. This can be applied to the battle at sea as well. If the U.S. aims to deploy large expensive ships across the Asia-Pacific, we could see our adversaries working together to deploy cheap drones to destroy the ships.

China has also unveiled the Feiyi drone earlier this year, the world’s first known aerial and underwater drone capable of launching from a submarine, transitioning between air and sea multiple times, and returning to its original platform.

Preparing NATO for the Future

In a February 2025 interview, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey laid out bold ideas for revitalizing the U.S. defense industry and countering China’s growing military threat. He argued that the U.S. should shift from “world police” to “world’s gun store,” prioritizing mass production of weapons over elite, slow-to-build systems. Citing China’s massive manufacturing capacity and militarized civilian infrastructure, Luckey warned that Beijing is preparing for full-scale war, including repurposing commercial ships and producing cruise missiles far faster than the U.S.

Warfare is rapidly evolving into a battle of algorithms and adaptability. If the West clings to its old-school model of building massive, slow-to-deploy systems, it risks a harsh wake-up call – where billion-dollar warships are struck down by sea drones costing a fraction of that. In this new era, speed, scale, and software will determine who dominates the battlefield. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, it was unprepared for how quickly warfare would evolve, and how drones would come to dominate the skies.

Now Ukraine has amassed a massive war-time video dataset, over 2 million hours of drone footage through its OCHI system, which collects and analyzes feeds from 15,000 frontline drone crews. This data is being used to train AI for battlefield applications such as target recognition, weapon effectiveness analysis, and autonomous drone tactics.

Kuzan believes that Ukraine is already working on building AI technologies for its sea drones as well. “Notably, during the successful maritime drone attack on December 31, 2024, which resulted in the destruction of Russian helicopters, many researchers speculated that AI was used to enhance target identification and missile guidance,” said Kuzan.

NATO should work closely with Ukraine on the development of these models to prepare its own autonomous sea drones to deploy them in future conflicts. The UK-built Kraken3, inspired by Ukraine’s battlefield innovations, was recently unveiled, showcasing AI-powered swarming capabilities, kamikaze drone launches, and GPS-free navigation, reflecting how Ukrainian success is already influencing NATO procurement.

NATO itself has begun expanding its unmanned maritime capabilities, recently demonstrating autonomous surface vessels in the Baltic Sea through Task Force X, an initiative designed to deter sabotage and fill surveillance gaps. But these sea drones are focused on addressing the threat of Russian sabotage. More practical drones are needed to help disable enemy warships, such as in the event of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan. Expensive systems will no longer do the job. Cheap and scalable solutions are what is needed for NATO. Some in the U.S. are already thinking about how naval warfare is being transformed. For example, the U.S.-based Anduril has unveiled the Seabed Sentry – a network of AI-powered mobile undersea sensor nodes designed for persistent monitoring and undersea kill chains.

Lithuania is leading by example as it is moving toward shared sea drone production with Ukraine under a “1+1” model, where one Magura-class sea drone would be retained for Lithuania’s defense and the other delivered to Ukraine. “Whether you want to believe it or not, whether you have or are about to sign contracts for tanks and helicopters for the next 10 years, the nature of military power has already changed,” said Zaluzhnyi.

Today, Ukraine’s sea drones control a significant extent of the Black Sea. In a future conflict over the Arctic or the Asia-Pacific, we can expect an even greater surge – a true sea of drones. As Ukraine’s navy chief put it, “After the war we will certainly write a textbook and we’ll send it to all the NATO military academies.”

David Kirichenko is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. His work on warfare has been featured in the Atlantic Council, Center for European Policy Analysis, and the Modern Warfare Institute, among many others. He can be found on X/Twitter @DVKirichenko.

References

1. This article draws on interviews conducted by the author from the period of March-April 2025.

Featured Image: A Ukrainian military counterintelligence brigadier general walks on a new Sea Baby “Avdiivka” naval drone, during its presentation by the Ukrainian security service, in the Kyiv region, on March 5, 2024. (Photo by Evgenniy Maloletka/AP)

Center for International Maritime Security

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