U.S. Special Forces sink a ship with Ukrainian-designed drone boats

Green Berets from 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) remotely launched and controlled unmanned surface vessels during Exercise Balikatan 2026, using them to deliver shaped charges against a target vessel off the western coast of Itbayat, Philippines, on April 24 — and the drone boats they operated bore a striking resemblance to one of the most combat-proven naval platforms in the world: Ukraine’s Magura V7.

The event, designated Maritime Strike-North, was a combined live-fire training operation conducted by U.S. and Philippine special operations forces in the Batanes archipelago, a chain of islands in the Luzon Strait roughly 100 miles south of Taiwan.

According to the DVIDS official release, combined air and maritime assets engaged and sank a designated target vessel in a complex, multi-domain operation. The unmanned surface vessels, operated by U.S. special operations forces, delivered shaped charges against the target vessel, puncturing its hull and degrading its structural integrity. The exercise also incorporated other emerging technologies designed to enhance maritime awareness and precision strike capability, per the same release.

The USVs photographed during the exercise match the design and dimensions of the variant produced by Red Cat Holdings’ maritime division, Blue Ops — a platform that Red Cat announced in May 2025 as a U.S.-built version of the Ukrainian Magura series, developed in cooperation with an unnamed leading global USV manufacturer. The connection between Red Cat’s vessel and the Ukrainian Magura line was widely reported at the time. As Defense Express noted in May 2025, the technical specifications of Red Cat’s announced platform — including its 7-meter length and design characteristics — were “completely identical” to the Magura-series unmanned surface vessels created by an undisclosed Ukrainian company and operated by Group 13, a special unit within Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence.

Red Cat’s variant, marketed under the Blue Ops label as the Variant 7, is built for high-speed, long-range, kinetic maritime operations. According to the company’s specifications, it carries a mission payload capacity of up to 650 kilograms, reaches a maximum combat velocity of at least 39 knots, and sustains 23 knots on extended operations. Maximum operational range runs to 800 nautical miles on a standard payload. Endurance in unmanned mode exceeds 60 hours of continuous operation. The hull — 7.2 meters long, 2.1 meters wide — is built from advanced composite materials combining HDPE and fiberglass. A 270-horsepower hybrid jet and inboard drive system provides propulsion, fed by a 1,200-liter diesel fuel capacity. The sensor suite integrates a day/night electro-optical targeting system with enhanced stabilization, dual redundant imaging systems, and an acoustic detection and classification package. Command and control runs through a multi-redundant encrypted architecture with dual satellite communications uplinks, fully COMSEC-compliant.

Red Cat CEO Jeff Thompson framed the company’s maritime ambitions directly in its official statement. “Our unmanned surface vessels are purpose-built to support U.S. military operations by delivering resilient, interoperable maritime capabilities that adapt to evolving mission requirements,” Thompson said. The company has described its mission as supporting national defense “while playing a vital role in revitalizing the American maritime industry through advanced manufacturing, strategic partnerships, and unwavering commitment to U.S.-based innovation.”

The Magura lineage behind these vessels carries considerable operational weight. The Magura V5, the predecessor to the V7, has been credited with multiple sinkings of Russian warships in the Black Sea since mid-2023. The V7 itself made history on May 2, 2025, when Group 13 used it to shoot down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets using surface-launched AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles — the first time unmanned surface vessels had ever destroyed fixed-wing aircraft in combat. A system with that kind of operational pedigree arriving in the hands of U.S. Army Special Forces at one of the most strategically significant exercises in the Indo-Pacific is not a coincidence.

Red Cat had announced its partnership and planned U.S. production of the 7-meter platform in May 2025, with production scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2025. The Maritime Strike-North exercise at Balikatan 2026 appears to represent the operational debut of that production effort — or at minimum, the first publicly documented employment of the platform by U.S. forces in a live-fire exercise environment. The Pentagon’s broader interest in Red Cat’s maritime systems has been reinforced by the company’s inclusion in the Department of War’s Drone Dominance Program, which provided external validation of its technology against current U.S. defense requirements.