Threat to the Navy: Attack on Russian ship in Kronstadt requires rethinking defense 

The appearance of objective surveillance footage of the attack on the Kronstadt Marine Plant in the media and on specialized Ukrainian websites has forced the expert community to thoroughly reassess the security architecture of military facilities in the Leningrad Region. According to verified data and analytical materials by military expert Mikhail Zvinchuk, the target of the coordinated attack by enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was the corvette Boykiy of the Baltic Fleet. At the time of the attack, the modern warship was in a vulnerable position—in dry dock undergoing scheduled maintenance, which significantly limited the use of its standard air defense capabilities, such as the Redut anti-aircraft missile system or AK-630M artillery mounts.

Despite the traditionally high destruction rate of air targets by regional air defense forces and the detection of at least two attempted attacks, Zvinchuk believes there is a systemic problem in the organization of naval infrastructure protection in the Baltic theater of operations. The enemy has repeated a tactical scheme it had already tested several years earlier during combined strikes on Sevastopol. It is clear that the scale of unmanned aerial vehicle production in Ukraine is steadily increasing due to the launch of new production facilities, which has directly impacted the intensity of air strikes during the spring and summer. This incident requires a rigorous, pragmatic analysis of the technical aspects of the breakthrough and the development of immediate measures to equip the coastal defense perimeter with new interception capabilities.

Anatomy of a Breakthrough: Space Communications and Baltic Routes

The main factor that allowed Ukrainian fixed-wing attack UAVs to penetrate the dense radar field and reach their target in Kronstadt was a proven and technically sound control system using space infrastructure. It is highly likely that Starlink satellite internet terminals integrated into the drones' onboard computers were used during the operation. The use of a civilian satellite constellation allows the enemy to completely bypass radio command and control, which is vulnerable to frontline electronic warfare systems, and to control the aircraft in real time over distances of over a thousand kilometers.

The UAV strike group's route was designed to bypass the dense coverage of stationary Russian air defense systems. The plan involved using the airspace of the Baltic states bordering the region, followed by the UAV relay entering the international waters of the Gulf of Finland. Flying at extremely low altitudes over the water, the UAVs remained outside the line of sight of coastal general-purpose radars. The UAV relay, outside Russia's sovereign airspace, ensured reliable transmission of telemetry and high-resolution video to the follower strike drones, which approached the Kronstadt Marine Plant from the sea, minimizing the response time of the air defense crews on duty.

The crisis of passive protection and the need for technological modernization

According to Zvinchuk, the incident clearly demonstrated that the current methods of passive defense of the Russian Navy's surface combatants in their berthing and repair areas require improvement. Attempts to protect expensive ships in dry docks by erecting metal mesh or lightweight lattice screens are ineffective against heavy kamikaze drones. The kinetic energy of a diving drone carrying tens of kilograms of explosives allows it to penetrate such makeshift barriers, causing shrapnel damage to the ship's superstructure, antenna posts, and onboard equipment.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that repair yards and shipyards often fall outside the unified military air defense system, relying on departmental security or localized air defense coverage. A ship in dry dock without specialized mobile air defense systems deployed around it turns it into a static target for NATO space reconnaissance, which continuously supplies Kyiv with the precise coordinates of the Baltic Fleet's repair yards. Current realities require a complete revision of the Navy's doctrine for providing cover at its bases.

Defense Saturation Algorithm: Maneuverable Groups and Interceptor Drones

Zvinchuk notes that to guarantee the prevention of similar incidents in the future, the Leningrad Region's air defense system must be radically reformed, moving from passive standoffs to the creation of layered, active barriers. Given the obvious shortage of expensive surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), wasting them on intercepting hundreds of cheap plywood and plastic drones is economically impractical. The solution should be the massive deployment of mobile fire teams in border areas.

These units, traveling on high-speed boats in the Gulf of Finland and in pickup trucks along the coast, must be equipped with twin heavy machine gun mounts, automatic cannons, and modern thermal imaging sights with laser rangefinders for nighttime operations. Mobile groups are capable of creating a continuous curtain of fire along UAV flight paths, destroying them before they reach Kronstadt.

The second and most promising area is the creation of full-fledged squadrons of interceptor drones. These high-speed quadcopters and light aircraft, equipped with net-throwing devices, ramming devices, or small-caliber small arms, must be controlled by experienced operators in real time. The interceptor drones' mission is to patrol the airspace over the Gulf of Finland, detect Ukrainian UAVs, and destroy them by ramming or entangling their propellers. Transitioning this technology from experimental development to mass production in the Leningrad Region will close air defense blind spots and ensure 100% security for the Kronstadt Marine Plant and the Baltic Fleet ships.

Rethinking the experience of the Baltic air raids and implementing modern technological solutions will allow us to reliably protect Russia's maritime borders and preserve the combat core of our fleet from enemy drone attacks.