Russia's sinking fake ships with exploding naval drones. The training likely isn't for war with Ukraine.
Russia's defense ministry released footage on Saturday of its "July Storm" naval exercises, and one of the publicized demonstrations showed forces from the Baltic Fleet use uncrewed surface vessels to destroy a fake enemy ship.
The footage showed a naval drone approaching the mock target in the middle at a perpendicular angle and impacting the structure, causing a massive blast.
The defense ministry said the exercise involved naval drones, aerial drones, helicopters, and ships — all of which have been involved in battles in the Black Sea.
Ukraine did not have much of a navy at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in early 2022, especially after scuttling what little it had to keep the Russians from getting their hands on it. To project maritime power and fight back, Kyiv launched an asymmetric military campaign using domestically produced naval drones and missile strikes to harm Moscow's Black Sea Fleet.
These operations damaged or destroyed dozens of Russian warships and forced Moscow to relocate the bulk of the Black Sea Fleet from its long-held headquarters in the occupied Crimean peninsula to the port of Novorossiysk on the other side of the region.
Russia has attempted to strengthen its defenses around the Black Sea, such as by adding more combat patrol aircraft to better monitor the area, but Ukraine has adapted to this by equipping its naval drones with surface-to-air missile launchers.
Russia's July Storm exercise includes a host of other training scenarios, including anti-submarine, mine-laying, and missile strike operations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement carried by the defense ministry that "the Navy's exercise is primarily designed to thoroughly train naval forces in repelling maritime attacks and performing the full range of extremely challenging and unconventional operational and tactical missions, and other tasks in a realistic simulated environment."
Putin said that "the training incorporates experience gained during the special military operation," using the Kremlin's terminology for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
While the exercises might have been inspired by the Ukraine conflict, they are likely pointed at a potential clash between Russia and NATO, whose forces are increasingly training for naval drone warfare. The US Navy, for instance, has integrated new training scenarios designed to teach sailors how to survive this threat, which is appearing in more places.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
29 minutes ago
- Washington Post
A look at the top buyers of Russian oil as Trump pressures China and India to stop buying it
U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing China and India to stop buying oil from Russia and helping fund the Kremlin's war against Ukraine . Trump is raising the issue as he seeks to press Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. But cheap Russian oil benefits refiners in those countries as well as meeting their needs for energy, and they're not showing any inclination to halt the practice. China, India and Turkey are the biggest recipients of oil that used to go to the European Union . The EU's decision to boycott most Russian seaborne oil from January 2023 led to a massive shift in crude flows from Europe to Asia. Since then, China has been the No. 1 overall purchaser of Russian energy since the EU boycott, with some $219.5 billion worth of Russian oil, gas and coal, followed by India with $133.4 billion and Turkey with $90.3 billion. Before the invasion, India imported relatively little Russian oil. Hungary imports some Russian oil through a pipeline. Hungary is an EU member, but President Viktor Orban has been critical of sanctions against Russia. One big reason: It's cheap. Since Russian oil trades at a lower price than international benchmark Brent, refineries can fatten their profit margins when they turn crude into usable products such as diesel fuel. The Kyiv School of Economics says Russia took in $12.6 billion from oil sales in June. Russia continues to earn substantial sums even as the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations has tried to limit Russia's take by imposing an oil price cap. The cap is to be enforced by requiring shipping and insurance companies to refuse to handle oil shipments above the cap. Russia has, to a great extent, been able to evade the cap by shipping oil on a 'shadow fleet' of old vessels using insurers and trading companies located in countries that are not enforcing sanctions. Russian oil exporters are predicted to take in $153 billion this year, according to the Kyiv institute. Fossil fuels are the single largest source of budget revenue. The imports support Russia's ruble currency and help Russia to buy goods from other countries, including weapons and parts for them.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How Russia reins in the internet by blocking websites and isolating it from the rest of the world
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — YouTube videos that won't load. A visit to a popular independent media website that produces only a blank page. Cellphone internet connections that are down for hours or days. Going online in Russia can be frustrating, complicated and even dangerous. It's not a network glitch but a deliberate, multipronged and long-term effort by authorities to bring the internet under the Kremlin's full control. Authorities adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that won't comply. Technology has been perfected to monitor and manipulate online traffic. While it's still possible to circumvent restrictions by using virtual private network apps, those are routinely blocked, too. Authorities further restricted internet access this summer with widespread shutdowns of cellphone internet connections and adopting a law punishing users for searching for content they deem illicit. They also are threatening to go after the popular WhatsApp platform while rolling out a new 'national' messaging app that's widely expected to be heavily monitored. President Vladimir Putin urged the government to 'stifle' foreign internet services and ordered officials to assemble a list of platforms from 'unfriendly' states that should be restricted. Experts and rights advocates told The Associated Press that the scale and effectiveness of the restrictions are alarming. Authorities seem more adept at it now, compared with previous, largely futile efforts to restrict online activities, and they're edging closer to isolating the internet in Russia. Human Rights Watch researcher Anastasiia Kruope describes Moscow's approach to reining in the internet as 'death by a thousand cuts." "Bit by bit, you're trying to come to a point where everything is controlled.' Censorship after 2011-12 protests Kremlin efforts to control what Russians do, read or say online dates to 2011-12, when the internet was used to challenge authority. Independent media outlets bloomed, and anti-government demonstrations that were coordinated online erupted after disputed parliamentary elections and Putin's decision to run again for president. Russia began adopting regulations tightening internet controls. Some blocked websites; others required providers to store call records and messages, sharing it with security services if needed, and install equipment allowing authorities to control and cut off traffic. Companies like Google or Facebook were pressured to store user data on Russian servers, to no avail, and plans were announced for a 'sovereign internet' that could be cut off from the rest of the world. Russia's popular Facebook-like social media platform VK, founded by Pavel Durov long before he launched the Telegram messaging app, came under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018-20 but failed. Prosecutions for social media posts and comments became common, showing that authorities were closely watching the online space. Still, experts had dismissed Kremlin efforts to rein in the internet as futile, arguing Russia was far from building something akin to China's 'Great Firewall,' which Beijing uses to block foreign websites. Ukraine invasion triggers crackdown After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government blocked major social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Signal and a few other messaging apps. VPNs also were targeted, making it harder to reach restricted websites. YouTube access was disrupted last summer in what experts called deliberate throttling by authorities. The Kremlin blamed YouTube owner Google for not maintaining its hardware in Russia. The platform has been wildly popular in Russia, both for entertainment and for voices critical of the Kremlin, like the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider, said in June that websites using its services were being throttled in Russia. Independent news site Mediazona reported that several other popular Western hosting providers also are being inhibited. Cyber lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan, founder of Russian internet freedom group Roskomsvoboda, said authorities have been trying to push businesses to migrate to Russian hosting providers that can be controlled. He estimates about half of all Russian websites are powered by foreign hosting and infrastructure providers, many offering better quality and price than domestic equivalents. A 'huge number' of global websites and platforms use those providers, he said, so cutting them off means those websites 'automatically become inaccessible' in Russia too. Another concerning trend is the consolidation of Russia's internet providers and companies that manage IP addresses, according to a July 30 Human Rights Watch report. Last year, authorities raised the cost of obtaining an internet provider license from 7,500 rubles (about $90) to 1 million rubles (over $12,300), and state data shows that more than half of all IP addresses in Russia are managed by seven large companies, with Rostelecom, Russia's state telephone and internet giant, accounting for 25%. The Kremlin is striving 'to control the internet space in Russia, and to censor things, to manipulate the traffic,' said HRW's Kruope. Criminalizing 'extremist' searches A new Russian law criminalized online searches for broadly defined 'extremist' materials. That could include LGBTQ+ content, opposition groups, some songs by performers critical of the Kremlin — and Navalny's memoir, which was designated as extremist last week. Right advocates say it's a step toward punishing consumers — not just providers — like in Belarus, where people are routinely fined or jailed for reading or following certain independent media outlets. Stanislav Seleznev, cyber security expert and lawyer with the Net Freedom rights group, doesn't expect ubiquitous prosecutions, since tracking individual online searches in a country of 146 million remains a tall order. But even a limited number of cases could scare many from restricted content, he said. Another major step could be blocking WhatsApp, which monitoring service Mediascope said had over 97 million monthly users in April. WhatsApp 'should prepare to leave the Russian market,' said lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, and a new 'national' messenger, MAX, developed by social media company VK, would take its place. Telegram probably won't be restricted, he said. MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported. Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Anastasiya Zhyrmont of the Access Now digital rights group said both Telegram and WhatsApp were disrupted in Russia in July in what could be a test of how potential blockages would affect internet infrastructure. It wouldn't be uncommon. In recent years, authorities regularly tested cutting off the internet from the rest of the world, sometimes resulting in outages in some regions. Darbinyan believes the only way to make people use MAX is to 'shut down, stifle' every Western alternative. 'But again, habits ... do not change in a year or two. And these habits acquired over decades, when the internet was fast and free,' he said. Government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor uses more sophisticated methods, analyzing all web traffic and identifying what it can block or choke off, Darbinyan said. It's been helped by 'years of perfecting the technology, years of taking over and understanding the architecture of the internet and the players,' as well as Western sanctions and companies leaving the Russian market since 2022, said Kruope of Human Rights Watch. Russia is 'not there yet' in isolating its internet from the rest of the world, Darbinyan said, but Kremlin efforts are 'bringing it closer.' Dasha Litvinova, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
LIZ PEEK: Hillary is finally paying dearly for dirty tricks that hurt Trump and American voters
Put yourself in Hillary Clinton's shoes. No, really. I know it's an abhorrent thought, but imagine being Hillary, having initiated the greatest political dirty trick of all time, watching Russiagate unspool over the past decade. Think of her witnessing the country go down the granddaddy of all rabbit holes in 2017 – a rabbit hole she personally helped dig -- looking for proof of Russian collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that she knew didn't exist. What was she thinking as the country hired a special prosecutor and spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to pursue leads that she and her campaign team had fabricated out of thin air? Was she ever remorseful? Was there ever a moment when she wanted to reel in the whole sorry deception and tell the country that she was sorry, and that she had lied? No, there was not. Hillary Clinton even wrote a book called "What Happened?" in which she blamed Putin, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and former CIA Director James Comey for her shocking loss to Donald Trump, a non-politician whom she mocked and derided. To this day, she sticks to her self-serving fable, that Russian President Vladimir Putin was out to get her and, but for his interference, she would surely have become the country's first female president. The reality is that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate, disliked and distrusted by most Americans. Polling from CNN that came out about the time of the 2016 Democrat Convention gives a taste of what voters thought of Clinton. The Washington Post reported, "68 percent say Clinton isn't honest and trustworthy… her worst number on-record…. The 30 percent who see Clinton as honest and trustworthy is now well shy of the number who say the same of Trump: 43 percent." The public was right not to trust Clinton; the more we learn about Russiagate, and her role in it, the more apparent that is. Any normal person would conclude that Clinton, whose approval rating CNN pegged at a dismal 31% in July 2016, was not a shoo-in come the November election. Barack Obama had been president for eight years and the country had become less Democrat-leaning during his term; only 31% of the nation identified as Democrat in 2016, while 36% had described themselves as true blue in 2008, when he was first elected. Though expressing confidence that she would win, maybe Hillary knew she had to pull out all stops to beat Donald Trump. Perhaps that's why she signed off on two dirty tricks that led to the despicable undermining of Donald Trump's presidency. First, her former campaign manager Robby Mook testified in court that she personally approved her campaign's scheme in October 2016 to tell a Slate magazine reporter about an unverified server backchannel between the Trump Organization and Alfa bank in Moscow. This supposed connection formed the first step in trying to convince the public that Donald Trump was a tool of Vladimir Putin. The purported link never existed, but it was widely publicized by Hillary's supporters and the legacy media (I repeat myself), creating suspicion in the public's mind. After the Slate story emerged, weeks before the election, Hillary put out a tweet claiming "Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank," followed up by a news release in which she said, "This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia." The FBI subsequently concluded no "hotline," indeed no link, ever existed. Interestingly, another apparatchik pushing the Trump-Alfa bank lie was Jake Sullivan, later presumably rewarded by President Joe Biden appointing the unknown politico to be National Security Adviser. Of course, the bigger and more destructive Russia collusion lie that Hillary helped originate came from the salacious allegations contained in the Steele dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign, which led to the longtime investigation into Russian interference and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This is a fact, verified by the fact that the Federal Election Commission under Biden penalized the campaign and the DNC for lying about having funded that opposition research. The story, however, goes on. New revelations have revived accusations that Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack Obama, James Comey, John Brennan and others manipulated intelligence and facts to feed the public even more lies about Donald Trump's supposed ties to Russia. Amazingly, the New York Times has again leapt into the breach to protect Clinton, perhaps concerned they might lose their 2018 Pulitzer earned for helping promote a fake news story. They reference, "An annex to a report by the special counsel John H. Durham" but claim the disclosures are an effort by "the Trump team [seeking] to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files." They write that GOP allegations that "Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign proposal to tie Mr. Trump to Russia to distract from the scandal over her use of a private email server" is not valid because…the damning emails contained in the annex are likely fabrications from Russian spies. Sure. Will we ever know the complete truth about the plot hatched to discredit the Trump presidency? Probably not, and it is probably also true that key players like Hillary Clinton will never be held accountable. But, as Hillary watches the ongoing revelations coming from the Trump White House, we can also imagine that she is getting her comeuppance. Her treachery and deceit -– knowing how badly she has abused the public's trust -- has surely shriveled her soul, leaving her bitter and defeated. People now see her as a corrupt schemer, someone who knew she could not win an election on her merits and so resorted to lies and fabrications that hurt the country. We also now see her as someone who didn't just attack President Trump, but also the 61 million Americans who voted for him in 2016.
