Licence to krill: what happened to Crimea’s dolphin army?
In 2012 the Ukrainian navy revived a Soviet project that trained combat dolphins – but following the annexation of Crimea many are wondering what side they will flip on?
The combat dolphin programme in Sevastopol, dating back to the 1960s, was due to be disbanded by the Ukrainian navy in April – but with the Russians now in control it appears the project will be kept on.
According to Russian news agency RIA Novosti the programme will be preserved and redirected towards the interests of the Russian navy.
A source told RIA Novosti: “Engineers are developing new instruments for new applications to boost the operational efficiency of the dolphins underwater.”
The dolphins are trained to patrol open water and attack or attach buoys to items of military interest.
The facility is one of only two such combat dolphin training centres in the world. The other is run by the US navy in San Diego.
‘Military intervention’
Russia’s seizure of Crimea, which has a majority Russian population, after the ousting of Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych by mass protests has triggered the worst east-west crisis since the cold war.
“Russia is on its way to unleash a full-blown military intervention in Ukraine’s east and south,” Ukraine’s UN representative Yurii Klymenko told a briefing meeting in Geneva last week.
Annexing Crimea was only the start of the Ukraine crisis, Mr Klymenko said.
He warned that Russia’s invasion of Crimea was only the “initial stage of the world-scale military play orchestrated by Moscow.”
Putin already has plans on the territory of mainland Ukraine, Mr Klymenko said.
Putin ‘has a lot to lose’
But it is not a masterplan, says Professor Margot Light of the London School of Economics. Putin may have played the hard military leader over Crimea – but despite what the Ukraine government fears – he doesn’t want to go further, she said.
“I don’t think he’s going to launch a full-scale invasion. I do think the situation in southern and eastern Ukraine is extremely volatile and extremely dangerous.
“I don’t think is fully under Putin’s control but I don’t think it’s what he wants to do.”