Ukraine’s sea drones are continuing to evolve, mounting machine guns on their hulls. This allows them to fire on enemy UAVs coming to get them and lay down suppressing fire at other targets within range.
This is the latest example of Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessels’ (USVs’) growing sophistication from floating swarm bombs to machines that can simulate combined arms operations at sea, in tandem with UAVs.
Evidence for this adaptation comes from both Ukrainian and Russian sources.
The Ukrainian Navy posted a video of yesterday’s operation against the Sivash drilling rig in the Black Sea. According to the Navy, the rig was being used as a base for surveillance, comms relays, electronic warfare, and short-range air defense. Russian special forces were also present, with weapons to shoot at drones and boats.
The Navy and Unmanned Systems Forces hit the rig with a plethora of different weapons, including missiles, flying drones, and naval drones. But the video also showed a machine gun being fired towards the rig from a floating platform.
It’s not immediately clear from the video what that platform is. Ukrainian military blogger Serhiy Misyura wrote that these are most likely Sargan-3000 naval drones, which can be armed with guns and missiles.
Ukrainian publication Dumskaya cited Navy spokesman Dmitry Pletenchuk that Sargan-3000s participated in the REPMUS military exercises off the coast of Portugal in 2025. During these exercises, Ukrainian drones reportedly “sank” a NATO frigate, targeting it before the NATO team became aware of their presence.
“The enemy was suppressed by small arms fire — I can understand the shock of the Russian specialists when a machine gun fires from the sea, a drone flies from the sky, and several cruise missiles approach,” Misyura wrote.
Russia also has naval drones called Sargan, which appear to be quite different from the Ukrainian versions. In both Ukrainian and Russian, “sargan” means “garfish.”
Russian media and online channels also posted a video of their UAVs taking out what looks like a very large Ukrainian sea drone with a machine gun mount. The drone was reportedly part of the attack towards the Novorossiysk port, which struck the Russian frigate Admiral Makarov.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is down to 7 major warships. Ukraine is hunting them one by one.
If the Russian footage is genuine, the blast suggests that the drone is rigged to explode to destroy its target, like many standard Ukrainian surface drones from the Magura and Sea Baby lines.
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The machine gun is a standout feature, possibly meant to impart added protection to the chonky drone, to help it survive longer in hostile waters, though it’s unclear how much their accuracy will be impacted from bobbing on the waves, while hurtling full-send at a target.
For this unit, the machine gun didn’t seem to save it from the Russian UAVs, which look like they came in from above at a steep angle.
However, the Telegram channel ExileNova+, which was among the sources posting these images, painted the following picture.
“Now imagine the picture in a few months, a flock of USVs with machine guns raiding the port of Novorossiysk, shooting down enemy mobile fire teams, while in the air, attack drones are flying towards their targets.”
The large USV also appears to be fitted with a a satellite guidance package, something Ukraine has been known to use in their surface drones on the Black Sea.
