Design and capabilities
Sea Baby is a Ukrainian unmanned surface vessel operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), larger and heavier-payload than the HUR-operated Magura V5 covered elsewhere in this glossary. Early models, revealed in 2023, carried explosive warheads up to 850 kilograms and had a range of roughly 1,000 kilometres using twin 200-horsepower inboard motors, with a top speed near 110 km/h. An upgraded generation unveiled by the SBU in October 2025 extended range to more than 1,500 kilometres and increased payload capacity to roughly 2,000 kilograms, adding reinforced engines and a modern navigation suite; the SBU says the platform now uses AI-assisted friend-or-foe targeting and multilayered self-destruct systems to prevent capture if boarded. Beyond its original single-use, explosive-ram role, current variants include a ten-tube 122-millimetre Grad-type rocket launcher for strikes against coastal or slow-moving targets, and a stabilised remote weapon station with a 12.7-millimetre machine gun and automatic target tracking for point-defence or anti-aircraft use within a strike group. Communications combine Starlink and Kymeta satellite links.
Operational history
Sea Baby first became publicly known after the 17 July 2023 attack that damaged the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, and struck the bridge again on 3 June 2025. The SBU credits its naval-drone programme, including Sea Baby, with damaging or sinking 11 Russian vessels and contributing to Russia's decision to relocate the bulk of its Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk. In December 2024, Sea Baby units fitted with machine guns engaged Russian Mi-8 helicopters and Raptor-class patrol boats near Crimea. Ukraine has said it intends to begin exporting the design to international partners following President Volodymyr Zelensky's September 2025 announcement lifting wartime restrictions on domestic arms exports.
AirVeto context
On 3 December 2025, Romanian navy divers destroyed by controlled detonation a drifting unmanned surface vessel found roughly 36 nautical miles (about 66 kilometres) east of Constanța; Romania's Ministry of National Defence identified it specifically as a Sea Baby-type drone, though it declined to state which country the drone originated from. Ukraine did not claim the object, and one report noted Ukraine said its own naval drones were all accounted for and that none had entered Romanian waters — so the Sea Baby identification and the object's origin are two separate questions, and only the first is confirmed. It is distinct from the Magura V5 incident covered elsewhere in this glossary, which happened six months later and involved a different naval-drone family docked directly at the port rather than found drifting offshore.