Russian military seeks five dolphins for military use

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia's Defense Ministry is looking to buy five dolphins, the government revealed on Wednesday, March 9 as the country strives to revive its Soviet-era use of sea mammals for military tasks, AFP reports.

The military has opened the bidding on a 1.75 million ruble ($24,000) contract to deliver dolphins to the military in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol by August 1, according to a document uploaded Wednesday to the government's procurement website.

According to public contract documentation, it is seeking two female and three male dolphins between three and five years old with perfect teeth and no physical impairments.

An unnamed source told RIA Novosti state news agency in March 2014 that new training programs were being designed to make the dolphins serve Russia's military interests.

Dolphins were used by the Soviet Union and United States at the height of the Cold War, having been trained to detect submarines, underwater mines and spot suspicious objects or individuals near harbors and ships.

Retired colonel Viktor Baranets, who observed military dolphin training in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, said that the sea mammals were part of the broader Cold War arms race between the USSR and the United States, AFP says.

"Americans looked into this first," Baranets told AFP. "But when Soviet intelligence found out the tasks the U.S. dolphins were completing in the 1960s, the defense ministry at the time decided to address this issue."