Five days after Ukrainian forces used naval drones to strike Russian oil terminals on the Black Sea ports of Novorossiya and Tuapse, a Magura unmanned surface vessel (USV), which could have been part of the attack, was found drifting off the north coast of Turkey, near the town of Çarşıbaşı.
According to the Turkish news outlet KuzeyEkspres, the drone was spotted by fishermen who tied it to their boat and towed it to shore. They called the Coast Guard, who, suspecting the USV was carrying explosives, evacuated the area and called in the military bomb squad to make it safe.
The report said: “Our fishermen found a fiber boat at sea last night and brought it to the port. Authorities came and inspected it. It was determined that there was a bomb inside. The boat is sitting in our port… The bomb squad is coming.”
Çarşıbaşı is located about 700 kilometers (440 miles) south of Novorossiya, 650 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, and 1,400 kilometers (900 miles) from the nearest Ukrainian-held territory.
Milbloggers, including the pro-Russian Military Informant Telegram channel and @RealestMercury on X, both agreed it was a Magura USV, although they commented on some physical differences to the V5 and V7 versions previously seen – this version seemed to have three satcom receivers. The user @war_noir posted a video on X that showed the recovered sea drone being inspected by the Turkish military:
This is not the first time that “stray” Ukrainian USVs have been recovered.
In September 2022, a sea drone washed up on the Crimean coast near Sevastopol. This was the first clue of how Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU), the main intelligence directorate (HUR), and Ukraine’s security services (SBU) were going to develop USV’s as a weapon of choice to attack (and ultimately drive away) Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
In November 2023, a second drone, now called the Magura, fell into Russian hands following an attack on Russian naval vessels off the western coast of Crimea
In July 2024, a USV made using a modified jet ski washed up on the coast of Turkey, near the town of Çatalca in the province of Istanbul.
Despite claims from pro-Russian milbloggers that after recovering Ukraine’s sea drones, Moscow would be able to reverse engineer them to develop countermeasures or build their own analogs, there has been no real let-up in Kyiv’s use of the weapon.