Global Hawk Drone Guided Ukrainian MAGURA V5 USV to Strike Russian Supply Ship

The sinking of the Russian large landing ship "Caesar Kunikov," in the Black Sea was made possible  by a Ukrainian Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Apparatus (MAGURA) V-5 unmanned surface vessel (USV) guided by a NATO Global Hawk drone.

Russian media reported that a Global Hawk UAV was spotted over Ukrainian waters when the attack occurred and left the scene to its base in Italy after the ship was struck, the report said quoting FlightRadar monitoring of the drone flight.

A Russian observer noted, “due to the open participation of NATO countries in this conflict, it is necessary to shoot down their reconnaissance aircraft and drones anywhere they are located closer than 500 km from our borders.”

The MAGURA V5 has to receive accurate target designation data from an aerial source for it to manoeuvre close to its target in choppy seas at night if it has to sneak in on the ship undetected.

Going by the fact that the 112 meter ship tilted to its side and sank within a short time, it must have received direct hits to its side from several  MAGURA V5 boats, each of which was carrying some 320 kg of explosives.

“It’s 5.5m long and 0.5m high. It’s very fast, can deliver a payload of 320 kilograms for a radius of 450 nautical miles. Its line above the water is not high so it’s very difficult to detect it in the water,” an executive of its manufacturer, SFTE SPETSTECHNOEXPORT was quoted as saying to Naval News at the 2023 DSEI show.