Russian Defense Official Wants 'Squadron' Of Trained Eagles To Defend Russia From Drones

A Russian defense official has called on the Kremlin to begin training eagles to defend the country from any future drone attacks.

Alexei Zhuravlev, the deputy chairman of the State Duman Defense Committee, made the suggestion while speaking to the Russian state-affiliated news agency RIA Novosti on Thursday. His remarks come after Russia accused Ukraine earlier this week of attacking the Kremlin with drones in a failed attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.

"We need to think about protecting our important infrastructure, to the point of forming a squadron of drone interceptor eagles in the Kremlin and other places," he said, adding, "The fact that the drone flew to the Kremlin is a personal insult to me."

Vladislav Shurygin, a military expert and pro-war pundit, later posted a video on his Telegram channel showing an eagle successfully intercepting what appears to be a commercial drone in mid-flight.

It is not the first time Russia has suggested the use of animals to bolster its defenses. In fact, a Russian naval base in the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, has reportedly been using combat "anti-diver" dolphins along with physical barriers to help bolster its defenses.

During the Soviet era, Russia is said to have used a military base in Sevastopol to train dolphins and whales to search for mines and plant explosives. It is also believed that the sea creatures were trained to kill underwater targets. There was also a report claiming Russia attached knives or pistols to the head of dolphins to attack enemy divers. This was later refuted by the Russian Navy, per the Moscow Times.

Before the annexation of Crimea in 2014, an aquarium in Sevastopol — which was still part of Ukraine at the time — was training dolphins to swim with children with special needs. However, the dolphins and the seals in the aquarium began receiving military training after the region was seized by Russian forces.

In 2019, Russian reserve colonel Viktor Baranets also confirmed to a Russian broadcaster that the military has been training dolphins for combat settings.

"We have military dolphins for combat roles, we don't cover that up," he said. "In Sevastopol (in Crimea) we have a center for military dolphins, trained to solve various tasks, from analyzing the seabed to protecting a stretch of water, killing foreign divers, attaching mines to the hulls of foreign ships."

It is unclear whether the dolphins, seals and whales actually engaged in military activities.