On December 19, Russian authorities reported a new missile threat to Novorossiysk. In the preceding days, Western intelligence agencies had been reporting details of the recent attack on Novorossiysk. According to Russian social media, this “looks very much like an active cover-up of the true events that occurred in the port on December 15.”
Although the SBU has publicly stated that a system called Sub Sea Baby was used to carry out the attack on Novorossiysk, this name does not reflect the industrial origin of the platforms used. According to Ukrainian sources, the device used in the underwater attack was based on technological modules supplied by the Ukrainian company Intelli LLC, developed under the Toloka brand.
Intelli LLC, led by Dmitry Zelenskyy, specializes in the design of compact underwater drones and develops systems for reconnaissance and asymmetric attack missions in protected maritime environments. Amid limited media coverage, Intelli LLC decided to separate its legal entity from its corporate name, a common practice in the Ukrainian ecosystem of sensitive dual-use technologies. The company has established itself in the segment of small underwater drones (less than 5 meters) designed to operate with a low acoustic signature and without constant communication with the operator.
Toloka’s TLK-150 platforms have already been used before Novorossiysk. According to several sources, drones from this same series were used in previous operations against the Kerch Strait Bridge, targeting its underwater structures. These operations allowed them to test their navigation, stealth, and target-hunting capabilities before a more complex port operation.
Again, OSINT sources have learned that more than one small underwater drone was used in the attack on Novorossiysk. A larger autonomous underwater vehicle, the Marichka model, developed by AMMO Ukraine, also took part in the operation, both as a support and as a diversionary maneuver. This large drone, specifically designed to attack ships and infrastructure, is believed to have hindered the detection and identification of the attack by Russian surveillance systems.
The Novorossiysk naval base is protected by a multilayered system, including anti-torpedo nets and acoustic detection systems designed to detect the use of divers and submarines, as well as trained dolphins. This is a legacy of Soviet doctrine still in use today.
However, a small underwater drone managed to penetrate this defense thanks to its size, poor visibility, and precisely planned trajectory, reaching the dock without triggering any alarms.
The operation also included a cyber component: SBU specialists hacked the closed-circuit television cameras at the Novorossiysk military port. These images allowed them to refine the targeting of the underwater drone during the final stages of its approach and assess the damage sustained by the submarine after the explosion.
For now, the submarine appears to be intact. Russian sources write: “On December 17, new satellite images of the Novorossiysk base show that the Project 06363 submarine was not damaged by the attack by the Ukrainian submarine.” For Ukraine, striking and undermining Moscow’s control of the Black Sea is a matter of survival, and therefore further attacks are expected.
Graziella Giangiulio
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