Ukraine’s Mine-Clearing Technology Offers a Solution Washington Lacks
A Ukrainian underwater drone, eight feet long and weighing just 50 pounds, has completed hundreds of missions mapping minefields in the Black Sea. Now, as Iran’s mining of the Strait of Hormuz threatens to keep 20% of the world’s energy supply at a standstill, that technology may be precisely what the United States needs — and cannot readily supply itself.
The TLK-150, manufactured by Ukrainian defence company Toloka, travels just below the surface using AI-assisted navigation, transmitting mine location data in real time over a range exceeding 1,200 miles per charge. Its design emerged from four years of active wartime demining operations in the Black Sea, where Russia has deployed thousands of underwater mines since 2022.
A Strategic Gap in U.S. Mine Countermeasures
Iran mined the Strait of Hormuz in March, effectively closing one of the world’s most critical commercial waterways. Clearing the explosives could take months, experts warn, largely because the United States lacks the specialist tools to do so efficiently.
“The U.S. Navy has been neglecting the mine countermeasures mission for more than 20 years. It’s a mission that gets very little attention, very little respect,” said Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation and former adviser to the U.S. Navy’s mine warfare command.
The Pentagon has stated that American forces are “addressing the risk of mines using manned and unmanned capabilities to ensure passage through the strait is safe.” In practice, this means relying on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, of which only two are currently deployed in the Middle East.
The vessels’ metal hulls present an inherent limitation: they cannot safely enter a minefield, forcing them to operate at a distance that strains the range of their deployed drones. “You have to keep the ship an appreciable distance from any area that might be mined, and that just puts strain on the range of the mission,” Savitz noted.
Western Drones Struggled in Ukraine’s Electronic Warfare Environment
The unmanned systems deployed by the Littoral Combat Ship — produced by American manufacturers including General Dynamics and RTX — face a further vulnerability: electronic jamming. During a mine-sweeping training exercise in the Black Sea last year, Western UAVs failed to function when GPS jammers activated during an air raid alert.
“They launched two UAVs, and then an air raid started, so the GPS jammers turned on, and the vehicles came to the surface, losing their GPS and their batteries ran out,” said one witness familiar with the incident. “It is very different in a wartime environment.”
Ukraine’s TLK-150 was engineered to withstand precisely these conditions. Rather than relying on GPS, it uses artificial intelligence to determine its position independently — a critical advantage in any theatre where electronic warfare is deployed. A comparable technology developed by Ukrainian firm Sine Engineering has already attracted a multi-million dollar investment from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation.
“Iranians may not be as sophisticated as the Russians in electronic warfare, but GPS jamming is a really easy task. You just have to generate a signal stronger than that of satellites,” Savitz said.
Real-Time Data Transmission Sets Ukrainian Systems Apart
Beyond jamming resistance, Toloka’s founder Dima Zelenskiy highlights a further operational advantage: the TLK-150 transmits mine detection data continuously, without requiring physical retrieval of the vehicle.
“Using conventional methods, you need to take the vehicle out of the water and connect a USB to the drone to get the data,” Zelenskiy said. “In our case, the vehicle does everything. When it detects the mines, it transmits the information. You don’t have to waste extra days or weeks getting the vehicles out.”
The United Nations Development Programme’s mine action adviser in Ukraine, Ed Crowther, was unequivocal in his assessment: “Without question, Ukraine is at the cutting edge of the mine action world. Technologies being developed here will change the way humanitarian demining is done.”
Procurement Bureaucracy Stands in the Way
Despite the clear capability gap and the availability of proven Ukrainian solutions, rapid deployment remains unlikely. The U.S. military’s acquisition system is not structured to absorb novel foreign technology at speed.
“If someone has a gadget that they bring to the U.S. acquisition system, then it goes through a very long series of processes, including testing and evaluation of various kinds and lots of back and forth,” Savitz explained. “That may be why we’re not incorporating this novel technology.”
The procedural obstacles are significant. Yet the cost of inaction is equally tangible: a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz carries serious consequences for global energy markets and the broader international trading system.
Kyiv Ready to Assist — But Has Not Been Asked
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear that Kyiv is prepared to offer its expertise. “We raised this issue, because it is a painful and urgent one — as we can all see, for the entire world. There is an energy crisis. They know they can rely on our expertise in this area,” he said in March.
A week later, he was more direct: “We can share this expertise with other countries, but nobody asked us to come and help with the Hormuz Strait.”
The question of whether Washington will overcome institutional inertia to draw on battle-tested Ukrainian innovation — or continue to rely on systems already shown to fall short — may ultimately determine how quickly one of the world’s most strategically vital waterways reopens for business.