Vladimir Putin reportedly ordered his Russian Navy to double the variety of dolphins educated to defend the nation’s Sevastopol naval base in Crimea, RadarOnline.com has realized.
The sudden transfer was reportedly considered a response to a current enhance in threats posed by Ukrainian particular forces divers.
A number of international locations, together with the USA and Sweden, have allegedly educated dolphins for army missions underwater – equivalent to detecting mines and misplaced tools and appearing as “guard canines” – for the Navy for the reason that Sixties.
The concept was reportedly picked up by the Soviet Union shortly thereafter, in keeping with Day by day Star, and led to the creation of the present Russian fight dolphin program.
Following the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this system was reportedly handed over to Ukraine earlier than the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
The dolphins had been then returned to Russia, though Putin claimed on the time that the marine mammals voluntarily “defected” to Moscow.
Since 2016, the Russian navy is thought to have acquired extra bottlenose dolphins, and the variety of dolphin pens at Sevastopol has elevated from 4 to seven in current months, in keeping with Naval Information.
In the meantime, Putin has additionally reportedly ordered the Russian Navy to “enhance defenses in different bases and ports round Crimea.”