June 7, 2026:
Murmansk in northwestern Russia houses the website of the Nakhimov Naval School, which posted an online photo of two submarines protected by netting. Military officials quickly removed it from the school's website. By then, however, the photograph had already been republished on various social media sites, showing how futile government censorship efforts were.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly and regularly attacked Russian warships, Black Sea ports and the area surrounding the Crimean Peninsula. More recently, Ukrainian drones have hit the Kronstadt Island naval base near St Petersburg. Further north, near the Arctic Circle, no drone attacks have been reported against warships stationed as far north as the Kola Peninsula.
Netting on Northern and Far East Fleet submarines would not provide any protection from long-range drones with warheads containing over ten kg of explosives. But the netting would protect from Ukrainian FPV/First Person View quadcopter drones. Last year, the Ukrainian Spiderweb operation arranged to have Russian truck drivers transport cargo crates containing fully assembled and ready-to-launch drones to locations near Russian airbases and leave them there. The crates were controlled by operators back in Ukraine, who had the crates opened and then guided the drones to damage or destroy most of Russia’s heavy bomber fleet. Paranoid Russian naval commanders thought Ukraine was going to make a similar attack on their SSBNs/nuclear subs carrying ballistic missiles. Currently, all Russian SSBNs, including those based in the Far East near Vladivostok, are vulnerable to Ukrainian drone attacks
The SSBN hulls are 20 to 40mm thick and resistant to FPV drone attacks, except for drone shaped-charge warheads. The Russians believe the Ukrainian drones will attack some undiscovered vulnerability. Ukrainian cleverness when carrying out drone attacks is much feared by Russian naval personnel. This is one group of Russians who would be glad to see the war with Ukraine end, which appears to be underway right now.