Barracuda Mothership Drones Breached Russian Coastal Defenses and Struck Boats Carrying Troops

Barracuda mothership surface drones from the Barracuda special unit of the 40th Separate Marine Brigade broke through Russian coastal defenses and struck landing craft carrying troops in the Zaliznyi Port area.

Video of the attack was released by the 40th Brigade’s press service.

As noted by the unit, intelligence detected a Russian troop rotation in the Zaliznyi Port area of the Kherson region. Following this, the decision was made to attack the occupiers using maritime drones.

The Russians attempted to disrupt the operation by attacking the Ukrainian surface drones with Geran-4 Siker jet-powered UAVs. However, out of two attempts, they were able to destroy only one of the boats, while the rest continued to carry out their mission.

Upon reaching the launch point, Ukrainian defenders launched FPV drones, which delivered the Barracuda mothership drones. The drone operators then detected Russian boats carrying troops and struck them.

“The result of the operation: the enemy’s rotation was disrupted, and the enemy landing force was destroyed,” the unit stated.

Barracuda surface drones

The existence of this drone first became known in August 2025. At that time, it was reported that the Barracuda special forces unit had independently designed and deployed a surface drone “that is already defending Ukraine’s shores.”

Depending on their configuration, the craft can perform reconnaissance, strike, transport, and evacuation missions; lay mines; deliver ammunition; and relay communications.

Certain variants are used as platforms for FPV drones, remotely controlled weapons, electronic warfare systems, or explosive warheads.

As a reminder, in mid-July, servicemen of the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade deployed a land-based robotic complex on the enemy-occupied shore of the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv region.

An unmanned surface platform was used as a crossing point. Once on the enemy shore, the ground drone was deployed to carry out a combat mission.

For this mission, they likely deployed the Ukrainian-made Lynx UGV equipped with a PKT machine gun.