The record What this system is, where it comes from, who operates it and which of Vigil’s modules it is relevant to — with the evidence each of those rests on.
Record
Conflict relevance
This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.
Operators
Ukraine: Operated by the Security Service of Ukraine, in joint operations with the Navy; the SBU's own programme, distinct from the Navy's Magura family. No fleet size recorded.
Battlefield role
Long-range unmanned strike at sea: attacks on warships, port infrastructure, bridges and — from 2025 — sanctioned tankers, and a launch platform for smaller drones, extending Ukrainian reach across a sea in which it has no surface fleet.
Strengths
Range enough to reach Novorossiysk from Ukrainian-controlled coast, a warhead sized for ships and piers, low cost against the value of what it strikes, and a programme that has iterated fast — launchers for missiles and FPV drones in 2025, an underwater variant by December 2025.
Limitations
Vulnerable to gunfire, helicopters and electronic warfare on the run in, so that many are lost per hit; dependent on satellite links and on reconnaissance to find targets at sea; and, for the 2025 tanker attacks, a use whose legal and political consequences are contested. Fleet size and loss rates are not published.
Campaign relevance
Derived: a participant organisation in these campaigns carries a typed equipment association with this system. That is not the same as documented use of the system in the campaign itself.
- The Black Sea campaign and the export corridor Since February 2022
via Uncrewed Maritime Forces (Reported, moderate confidence)
- The Ukrainian deep-strike campaign Since 2022
via Uncrewed Maritime Forces (Reported, moderate confidence)
Visual identification
A low, grey, boat-shaped hull with a small superstructure and sensor mast, seen almost only in SBU release footage; the underwater variant has not been shown in detail.
Documented conflict use
Documented by the SBU from the July 2023 Kerch bridge attack, the 2023 strikes on Black Sea Fleet ships and Novorossiysk, and the 2024 campaign that kept the fleet from the western Black Sea; in 2025, the attacks on shadow-fleet tankers attributed to the type; and on 15 December 2025 the Sub Sea Baby strike on a Kalibr-armed Improved Kilo submarine at Novorossiysk, the first documented underwater-drone hit on a submarine in port, with satellite imagery showing the boat damaged at its berth. Claims are the SBU's own except where imagery supports them.
Branch & service operators
- Uncrewed Maritime Forces Reported
- Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) — combat elements Documented
Related key events
Black Sea Fleet pushed from the western Black Sea
Repeated strikes on Sevastopol and losses to naval drones force Russia to relocate most major fleet units eastward; Ukraine's unilateral export corridor consolidates in the fleet's absence.
Assessed as of — 2025-12 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28