Ukraine Tests World's First Purpose-Built Robot Aircraft Carrier for Drones

A Ukrainian naval drone company unveiled the world’s first dedicated drone aircraft carrier on Monday, confirming months of reports that Kyiv’s military had developed a means of launching airborne strike drones from remote-controlled large motorboats.The 7-meter-long Magura MV11 marine drone was displayed and identified to the public during the Ukrainian Independence Day parade in a sail-by on the Dnipro River, the military information platform Oboronki reported. The Ukrainian marine drone manufacturer UFORCE has produced Magura model boats since 2023. The motor-boat-resembling sea drones have for the most part been used by Ukrainian naval commandos for kamikaze strikes against Russian ships and shore infrastructure, and more rarely as platforms for special missions.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The MV11, per the Oboronki report, is Ukraine’s first publicly identified sea drone, designed from keel up, to carry and launch other unmanned systems from its onboard, “allowing the drone to act as a mobile naval base” – as a remote-controlled aircraft carrier/drone hanger. Usable payload of the vessel as a mothership/transport platform is 2,200 kilograms (4,850 pounds). According to developers, the MV11 is capable of operating autonomously up to seven days. The article said the drone was developed jointly by UFORCE designers and R&D bureau in Portugal, with financing from unnamed Ukrainian allied states. Other Topics of Interest From Diia to Deep Strikes: 4 Ways Ukraine Reinvented Itself Since Independence From Diia to 10M drones a year and homegrown ballistic missiles, Ukraine has transformed its digital state and defense industry under wartime pressure. Photos and videos showed the vessel’s deck as a flat top broken into transport sections along the length of the hull, with doors protecting the transport section from sea and spray. The images run on major Ukrainian news platforms showed the compartments in a closed position. Video published by UFORCE in March 2026 demonstrated a Magura launching an interceptor Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) emerging from a container mounted on the deck of a Magura-type robot boat. Ukrainian military information platforms have suggested drones carried in a launch compartment would need to be mechanically restrained in a cradle or rack to protect them from the sometimes-sharp sea maneuvers carried out by Magura pilots. Given a typically sized Ukrainian first-person-view (FPV) drone armed with a conventional munition sufficient to destroy an armored vehicle, available deck space aboard an MV11 might be sufficient for quick launch of 20-40 aircraft in a single wave, and up to three waves of aircraft if the FPV drones were stored hopper-style in layers, Kyiv Post researchers found. The actual aircraft carrying capacity of the MV11 has not been made public. According to UFORCE, the MV11, aside from an aircraft carrier configuration, can also be used to perform reconnaissance and surveillance, as a support platform for amphibious operations, and as a supply vessel for fuel and equipment used by their naval drones. According to the developers, the drone can perform these tasks 24/7 and in all weather conditions. Russia’s military has sometimes struggled to contain Ukraine’s growing sea drone threat, deploying everything from advanced fighter jets to attack helicopters to block ships and shore-based machine guns to interdict Ukrainian robot boat attacks. In May 2025, Ukraine’s special operations command first fielded Maguras armed with anti-aircraft missiles. Russian official sources said the tactic was ineffective. Ukrainian sources said at least three helicopters were shot down before Russian air assets learned to keep a safe distance from the Ukrainian sea drones. First shown to the public in July 2023, Ukraine’s Magura-series maritime drones operating in kamikaze mode have scored repeated naval successes and become a critical weapon in Kyiv’s increasingly effective campaign to disable or destroy warships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The possibly most spectacular attack taking place on Feb. 1, 2024, saw six Maguras overwhelm shipboard defenses to sink the Tarantul-II covette Ivanovets within sight of shore of the Russia-controlled Crimea peninsula. Reportedly, 40 hands lost their lives. A Feb. 14, 2024, nocturnal strike scored multiple hits on and sank the 4,000-ton heavy assault ship Tsezar Kulikov offshore from the Crimea seaside resort Alupa. Recent high-profile operations using Magura boats as FPV launch platforms include an early August 2026 strike by FPV drones flown from Maguras operating off the Crimea coast to hit a pair of Russian S-400 Triumf interceptor missile launchers and an air defense radar protecting the south shore of the peninsula. A Ukrainian defense intelligence (HUR) statement estimated the value of Russian equipment losses in excess of $50 million dollars. Other Ukrainian drone units, possibly assisted by the take-down of the S-400, touted by the Kremlin to be the world’s most advanced air defense system, struck at least 60 targets across Crimea in the weeks following the HUR air raid, Kyiv Post records showed. The US-based military maritime equipment company RECONCRAFT and UFORCE, in July 2026, signed a memorandum of understanding for licensed production of Ukrainian Magura boats in Oregon and South Carolina, with the American boatbuilder providing manufacturing capability and UFORCE providing software, guidance systems and command-and-control technology. News reports have mentioned potential production volumes of hundreds of boats annually. Current Ukrainian production of Magura boats is a military secret. According to open sources, Ukraine’s special forces and navy have almost certainly fielded at least 100 boats since first fielding them in 2023, and possibly as many as 300. The US, Great Britain, Turkey and China have experimented with drones flown from conventional, human-operated aircraft carriers, but none of those countries has yet fielded an aircraft carrier-launched drone operationally. Iran converted the container ship Shahid Bahman Bagheri into a drone carrier equipped with a ski-jump launch ramp in the early 2020s. US and Israeli air strikes in February-March 2026 sank the vessel in shallow water near the Bandar Abbas/Khuran Strait. Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US.