Russian warship gets building-style camo after drone strikes

Photos published by military observer Massimo Frantarelli show a Russian Navy corvette in Kronstadt painted to resemble a waterfront building, with outlines suggesting windows and doors on its hull, alongside netting rigged over the deck to blunt drone strikes.

The image, credited to M. Mishin and dated August 22, shows the ship at the Leningrad Naval Base, home to the Baltic Fleet.

Frantarelli identified the vessel as a Project 1331M corvette, known in NATO reporting as the Parchim II class, and suggested it could be either the Zelenodolsk or the Kazanets. He did not confirm which. Russia’s Baltic Fleet operates around six of these small anti-submarine corvettes, built in East Germany in the 1980s and displacing roughly 800 tons.

The ship is the latest in a string of Baltic Fleet vessels to receive improvised paint schemes and protective netting this year. Naval analyst H I Sutton, who tracks the pattern on his Covert Shores site, has documented Russian warships at Kronstadt painted with black bows and sterns, World War Two-style dazzle stripes, and checkerboard patterns since mid-2026. Two Project 22800 Karakurt-class corvettes, Mytishchi and Burya, appeared in July with similar disruptive paint and anti-drone netting, according to Sutton’s reporting.

The changes follow a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on the Baltic Fleet. On June 3, 2026, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces hit the corvette Boikiy while it sat in dry dock at Kronstadt, causing extensive fire damage. Ukrainian officials said the strike likely left the ship a write-off. In March, Ukrainian drones sank the patrol ship Purga at Vyborg, near St. Petersburg. Neither vessel had anti-drone netting installed at the time it was hit.

Sutton and other analysts say the paint jobs are not intended as traditional camouflage against aerial or satellite observation, since Kronstadt’s ship positions are already well documented. Instead, they appear aimed at confusing the operators of Ukrainian one-way attack drones, who often work from low-resolution video feeds, and any computer-vision software those drones use to identify targets.

The tactic has a wartime precedent. During World War Two, several navies used paint schemes intended to make warships blend into their surroundings when viewed from the air. Germany’s Tirpitz reportedly received a camouflage pattern during fitting-out at Wilhelmshaven meant to make the battleship’s hull resemble a waterfront building, complete with painted window and door outlines, to confuse Allied reconnaissance aircraft.

Ukrainian strikes on Black Sea Fleet vessels with similar paint schemes have continued to succeed despite the disruptive patterns.