War in Ukraine: dolphins against submarines

For the US Navy, dolphins are installed at the entrance to the port of Sevastopol and have been deployed by the Russian army.

(Illustrative image) Marizilda Cruppe / Greenpeace

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According to the American naval institute, dolphins would be used by Russia in the strategic port of Sevastopol to protect itself from a Ukrainian attack.

Where a large part of the Russian fleet is installed.

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They are two small rectangles at the entrance to the port of Sevastopol, in Crimea.

For the US Navy, there is no doubt: dolphins are installed in these enclosures visible on satellite images.

The US Naval Institute reports that these animals were deployed by

.

The purpose of this device is to use the abilities of these marine mammals to wage

.

With their sonar, the most powerful in the world, they are able to detect objects hundreds of meters away, mines or divers trying to sabotage Russian ships, for example.

Mammals already used for military purposes in the 1960s

The US Navy knows what it's talking about: in the 1960s, dolphins were trained by the US military to defend themselves against submarine attacks.

A similar program was then launched in the USSR in the 1980s.

More recently, and still according to satellite images, the Russian army would have used dolphins in the Syrian port of Tartous.

In 2019, it was a beluga, equipped with a harness stamped Saint-Petersburg, which was spotted by Norwegian fishermen.

A harness in particular equipped with a camera support.

► To read also: Chemical weapons, cluster bombs: in Ukraine as elsewhere, the law still has a say

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