Russia Hijacks Ukraine's Spy Dolphins

'Combat dolphins' to change sides
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 27, 2014 12:38 AM CDT
Russia Hijacks Ukraine's Spy Dolphins
Some dolphins were used to help disabled children during the years the program was on hold.   (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Another humiliation for Ukraine: Russia, which now controls all military installations in Crimea, has also taken control of the country's military dolphin program. The secretive program, started in Soviet times, is based in the Crimean city of Sevastopol and has long been rumored to include training the mammals to kill divers via harpoons strapped to their back, and even to carry out suicide attacks on vessels, the Telegraph reports.

Ukraine restarted the program a few years ago, but sources at the Sevastopol oceanarium say the government had planned to shut it down this year, ABC reports. "The Ukrainian Navy lacked the funds for such know-how, and some projects had to be shuttered," a source says, adding that the combat dolphin will now be "preserved and redirected" for the Russian Navy. (More Crimea stories.)

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