The Ivan Khurs, a Russian signals intelligence ship, maneuvers aggressively toward the USS Farragut in the Arabian Sea in January 2020. The Ivan Khurs has been stranded in port in Sevastopol with major damage since mid-2023. (US Navy)

How Ukraine Hunted Down and Crippled a Russian Surveillance Ship

Share this link on Facebook

Share this page on X (Twitter)

Share this link on LinkedIn

Share this page on Reddit

Email a link to this page

Recent photographs confirm that the Ivan Khurs, a Russian signals intelligence ship, has remained functionally out of action in the Black Sea since 2024.

As the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year, Ukraine has amazed the world with its tenacity—and its ability to strike critical blows against Russia despite long odds. In particular, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have carried out daring strikes on the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, and a previously-attacked reconnaissance vessel was spotted in occupied Sevastopol this week with highly visible damage on one side.

According to recent reports from the anti-Russian “Crimean Wind” partisan movement in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, the Ivan Khurs may be in a non-operational state.

“Scouts photographed the medium reconnaissance ship ‘Ivan Khurs’ of Project 18280 in Sevastopol, moored at a pier in Holland Bay,”Crimean Wind posted on the Telegram social messaging app on February 25—with photos highlighting the damage that the spy ship took in a drone strike conducted in May 2023.

The Ukrainian military spent more than a year carefully tracking the spy ship’s movements before finally striking. A Ukrainian maritime drone covered more than 500 km (310 miles) before reaching its target northeast of the Bosporus Strait in the Black Sea. There are also reports that a drone may have hit the vessel in March 2024.

But what is known for certain is that for nearly two years, the vessel hasn’t gone to sea—and satellite images confirmed it was moved to Sevastopol with damage to its stern.

About the Ivan Khurs Spy Ship

The Kremlin had called for the building of four Project 18280 Yuriy Ivanov-class signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection ships, with each displacing 4,000 tons. The ships were meant to carry out activities similar to those of smaller SIGINT vessels during the Cold War, hiding off the coasts of the United States and other Western nations to employ electronic receivers to locate military radar systems. However, only two have been built to date.

The second ship in the class, Ivan Khurs, was launched in May 2017 and commissioned in June 2018. The vessel is named for Vice Admiral Ivan Khurs, who led the Soviet Navy’s intelligence branch from 1979 to 1987.

According to Euromaidan Press, “The ship is capable of radio reconnaissance and electronic warfare.” Sitting in port in Sevastopol, however, it is capable of neither of these things!

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Is Getting a Sinking Feeling

Since Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet has lost one-third to nearly one-half of its vessels, with at least 24 sunk or crippled. That has included numerous landing ships, submarines, and most notably the flagship missile cruiser Moskva—the largest warship lost in a military action to enemy fire since the Falklands War four decades earlier.

Most impressively, Kyiv has managed to inflict such damage despite not having a navy of its own, using Neptune anti-ship missiles to sink the Moskva and many other Russian vessels. Although not destroyed, the Black Sea Fleet has been described as “functionally inactive” in the western Black Sea. The attacks have forced the Russian Navy to relocate its vessels to safer, more distant bases, and kept Ukraine’s coastline relatively safe from Russian incursions.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

© The National Interest