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First US Trial of Ukrainian Magura Sea Drones Takes Place in the Indo-Pacific
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US special forces used Ukrainian-developed Magura sea drones to sink a decommissioned target ship in the Philippines, marking the system's first Indo-Pacific trial, Bloomberg reported on June 24.
Footage shown to Bloomberg captured the uncrewed surface vehicles closing on the ship's hull and detonating, sending the vessel beneath the waves during the recent, unannounced drill. The Magura class was developed in Ukraine and used to devastating effect against Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
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US special forces used Ukrainian-developed Magura sea drones to sink a decommissioned target ship in the Philippines, marking the system's first Indo-Pacific trial, Bloomberg reported on June 24.
Footage shown to Bloomberg captured the uncrewed surface vehicles closing on the ship's hull and detonating, sending the vessel beneath the waves during the recent, unannounced drill. The Magura class was developed in Ukraine and used to devastating effect against Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The exercise marks the spread of Ukraine's combat-tested naval drones beyond the Black Sea, as the US and its allies turn to low-cost, expendable craft to counter far larger fleets.
Oleg Rogynskyy, the Ukrainian chief executive of Uforce, the London-based startup that builds the drones, emphasized that their battlefield record is what fuels demand. "Combat-proof is absolutely key to anything moving forward here," he stated.
During the war against Russia, Maguras have sunk roughly 10 Russian warships and became the first sea drones to destroy aerial targets, Bloomberg reported. The newest variants carry two missiles, one of which downed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter near Cape Tarkhankut in occupied Crimea on December 31, 2024, the outlet noted.
A further strike destroyed a Su-30 fighter jet near Novorossiysk in May 2025, a claim Russian military bloggers confirmed.
The Magura V5, the combat-proven variant behind those strikes, is an explosives-laden uncrewed speedboat built to race toward and detonate against larger warships.
It is about 5.5 meters long, reaches 78 kilometers per hour, and carries up to 320 kilograms of explosives over a range of nearly 800 kilometers. Newer configurations add missiles, turning the platform from a one-way anti-ship weapon into a mobile launcher capable of striking aircraft.
Each Magura costs a few hundred thousand dollars, far below the price of a single modern US torpedo, Bloomberg reported. That affordability lets cash- and manpower-limited militaries punch above their weight, fueling foreign demand for the combat-tested Ukrainian design.
Rogynskyy noted that interest in the vessels is high, with Uforce in talks with countries across the Indo-Pacific and weighing at least two manufacturing sites in the region.
The Philippines trial followed a run of Magura operations against Russian targets. Just weeks earlier, Ukraine had used the drones to strike Russian ships off temporarily occupied Crimea, Bloomberg reported.
Days earlier, Ukrainian strikes had begun pushing Russian units off the spit by cutting their supply of ammunition, fuel, and food, leaving the remaining troops unable to hold.
It was among the last Russian holdings on the western side of the temporarily occupied Kherson region, overlooking the sea approaches to Mykolaiv and Odesa.
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