Is Russia Training Dolphin Soldiers? (Are We?)

Summary

Lawless Planet — “Is Russia Training Dolphin Soldiers? (Are We?)”

Host: Zach Goldbaum
Episode Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and investigative episode, host Zach Goldbaum explores the mysterious deaths of Black Sea dolphins and the intertwined history of military marine mammal programs in Russia and the United States. The narrative weaves through Cold War intrigue, ecological catastrophe, and present-day warfare, focusing on how dolphins and other marine animals have been trained—and sometimes weaponized—as part of human conflict. The investigation expands from a Ukrainian scientist’s grim discoveries to tales of “spy whales” and sheds light on the lesser-known environmental toll of war.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mystery of the Black Sea Dolphin Die-Off

• Setting: Ukrainian scientists conduct an autopsy on a porpoise in Odessa amid the 2022 Russian invasion.
• Finding: Dr. Pavel Goldin notes a mass die-off of dolphins and porpoises beginning precisely with the Russian invasion, fueling speculation about direct and indirect causes.
  • Quote: "We observed a mass die off which precisely coincided with the beginning of the full scale Russian invasion in February 2022." — Dr. Pavel Goldin (01:54)
• Estimates suggest up to 48,000 marine mammals lost in three months post-invasion.

2. Origins and Evolution of Military Dolphin Programs

• Historical Context:
  • Both the US and USSR developed marine mammal programs during the Cold War—initially focusing on benign tasks like object recovery but also experimenting with combat potential (04:50–09:00).
• US Navy Program:
  • Blair Irvine recounts being recruited as a naive graduate and learning to train dolphins for military tasks and efficiency, not warfare (06:01–09:43).
    • Memorable Moment: Irvine’s first dolphin, Tuffy, was notoriously aggressive, requiring unconventional training tactics (09:21–10:31).
• Morality of Training Animals for Combat:
  • Irvine reflects on being asked to train dolphins to find, but not kill, swimmers in Vietnam. He clarifies he would have quit had he been asked to train a killer dolphin (12:31–13:36).
    • Quote: "Just the idea of training an animal to kill a human. The whole concept is wrong from my point of view." — Blair Irvine (13:22)

3. Fact vs. Myth: Killer Dolphins

• Alleged Incidents:
  • The infamous story of “exploding” enemy swimmers killed by dolphins is recounted and debunked as sensationalist media fabrication (Penthouse, 1977). Both Irvine and official sources deny the Navy trained dolphins to kill (13:36–15:48).
    • Quote: "So much of this is developed by the media...That's baloney." — Blair Irvine (15:48)
• Activism and Controversy:
  • Former “CIA dolphins” freed from captivity by activists (16:03–17:31).
  • Soviet and later Russian military marine mammal programs are acknowledged by declassified documents.

4. The Soviet & Russian Marine Mammal Legacy

• The Soviets operated a parallel military dolphin program in Sevastopol, later sold to Iran after Soviet collapse (20:05–22:06).
• Colorful stories include parachuting dolphins for rescue missions and a marine biologist’s dedication amid political chaos.

5. Spy Whales & Modern-Day Allegations

• 2019 Incident: Norwegian fishermen rescue a beluga whale (“Valdemir”) wearing a harness stamped "Equipment St. Petersburg," triggering international speculation of a Russian spy whale (22:06–26:38).
• Investigative Journalism:
  • Reporter Sergey Dobrynin connects the whale incident to secret Russian military research and procurement evidence (27:02–29:48).
    • Quote: "Google Maps sometimes has very decent satellite images and quite up to date." — Sergey Dobrynin (29:08)
• Theories range from underwater surveillance to port security, but direct evidence of hostile “combat” training remains unproven.
  • Quote: "Valdmir was indeed an escaped military asset... placed in the port as guards." — Zach Goldbaum (29:50–31:15)

6. War’s Environmental Catastrophes

• Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam (June 2023, 33:22): $14 billion in damages, 80 towns flooded, ecological fallout reaches the Black Sea.
• Dolphins as Collateral Damage:
  • Pollution, noise, and war-related havoc identified as possible causes of the Black Sea die-off, though Dr. Goldin reserves full judgment pending research (34:12–35:40).
    • Quote: "During each dissection, we find found symptoms which have been new and unusual for us... We detected a lot of things we have never seen before." — Dr. Pavel Goldin (35:11)

7. Ecocide and the ICC

• Ukrainian prosecutors, with Dr. Goldin’s research, consider filing charges of ecocide against Russia at the International Criminal Court—possibly a legal first (36:09).
  • Quote: "Having dolphins in a military port during the war is a crime itself, and they cannot escape because they are in a cage... it's like they putting them as hostages." — Dr. Pavel Goldin (36:47)

8. Modern Military Marine Mammal Programs

• The US Navy’s marine mammal program continues openly, now emphasizing animal care and “defensive” operations (37:37–38:33).

9. Personal Reflections & Emotional Conclusions

• Blair Irvine recounts the death of his once-hostile dolphin, Tuffy, bringing emotional closure and complicating the notion of human/animal boundaries in war.
  • Quote: "The hard bitten caustic guy who doesn't care about dolphins actually sort of does." — Blair Irvine (39:13)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Dr. Pavel Goldin on the dolphin die-off
  “We observed a mass die off which precisely coincided with the beginning of the full scale Russian invasion in February 2022.” (01:54)

• Blair Irvine (on dolphin programs)
  “Just the idea of training an animal to kill a human. The whole concept is wrong from my point of view. They never asked me to do that. And I also said that if that was to be my next project, I quit.” (13:22)

• Irvine dismissing ‘killer dolphin’ tales
  “So much of this is developed by the media...That's baloney.” (15:48)

• Sergey Dobrynin (on evidence for Russian marine mammal programs)
  “Google Maps sometimes has very decent satellite images and quite up to date.” (29:08)

• Dr. Goldin (on dolphins as victims of war)
  “Having dolphins in a military port during the war is a crime itself, and they cannot escape because they are in a cage. So it's like they putting them as hostages, you know, and torturing them in public.” (36:47)

• Blair Irvine softens on dolphins
  “The hard bitten caustic guy who doesn't care about dolphins actually sort of does.” (39:13)

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Timeline & Timestamps of Major Segments

• 00:00–01:54 — Odessa, Ukraine: marine autopsy and the emergence of the dolphin die-off
• 04:50–13:36 — Blair Irvine and the US Navy marine mammal program, including early training, ethical boundaries, and rumors of “killer dolphins”
• 15:48–18:04 — Mythmaking, CIA dolphin programs, and Soviet counterparts
• 20:05–22:06 — The Soviet dolphin program: dolphin trainers, post-Soviet transition, Iran sale
• 22:06–26:38 — “Spy whale” incident in Norway
• 27:02–31:15 — Journalistic investigation: linking Valdemir to Russian military procurement
• 33:22–35:40 — 2023 Dam destruction and the Black Sea as a war zone, animal and ecosystem damage
• 36:09–39:13 — ICC case for ecocide, reflection on animal suffering in war, and Irvine’s emotional story

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Concluding Thoughts

This episode of Lawless Planet transcends its provocative title, painting a nuanced picture of how war weaponizes not just landscapes but living creatures—and how the shadow of Cold War propaganda continues to color the line between fact and fiction. With a cast of scientists, trainers, and investigative journalists, the episode asks what it means to make animals both tools and casualties of our conflicts, and whether true accountability—ecological or ethical—will ever be achieved.

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For listeners interested in further exploration, the host recommends the BBC documentary "Secrets of the Spy Whale" and coverage from Radio Free Europe by Sergey Dobrynin and Mark Krutov.

Transcript

[Zach Goldbaum]

Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. It's August 2022 in the seaside Ukrainian town of Odessa. A group of scientists wearing latex gloves and and protective gowns are gathered in the overgrown courtyard of a local university, standing over a makeshift gurney. On it is a corpse wrapped in a plastic tarp and held together by duct tape.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

You take the body from the fridge, then it melts during several hours, depending on the weather.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Dr. Pavel golden, who takes notes as his colleagues meticulously unwrap the body.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

So you should remove the skull cap quite quickly because you have little time when the brain is defrosting, because after it is defrosting it becomes unsuitable for the dissection.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Though the cause of death is unknown, the victim was discovered in Ukraine, which has been an active war zone since Russia invaded in February 2022. But this is no ordinary casualty of war. This victim is a porpoise, specifically an adult harbor porpoise, which is a kind of whale and close cousin of dolphins, a native to the cold deep waters of the Black Sea. Dr. Goldin is one of Ukraine's preeminent marine biologists and zoologists. Soon after Russia attacked Ukraine, Dr. Goldin started to see something that shocked him. Involving the local population of dolphins.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

We observed a mass die off which precisely coincided with the beginning of the full scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In the three months after Russia invaded, some scientists estimated that as many as 48,000 marine mammals had died, their bodies often scattered on the shores of Ukraine and other countries bordering the Black Sea. Dr. Goldin immediately took to Facebook, promising to investigate the mysterious deaths. He ended his post with a plea, Please report all known finds of dead dolphins. As Dr. Golding continued to collect and analyze specimens from the Black Sea, satellite imagery of the same waters depicted another unusual phenomenon. While thousands of dolphins and porpoises were dying in the Black Sea, a pod of new dolphins had just appeared, but these dolphins had not arrived naturally. These dolphins were assets of the Russian Navy. From wondry, I'm zach goldbaum and this is lawless planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.

[Blair Irvine]

Our dolphins and sea lions are natural hunters, but through training we change what Navy animals are hunting for.

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[Zach Goldbaum]

It may sound strange, but the dolphin soldiers that appeared in the Black Sea in 2023 were actually not a totally new phenomenon. They signaled a return to an old program that many thought had died with the fall of the Soviet Union. For years, the USSR tried to use dolphins to advance their military goals, and so did America. In fact, using animal labor in combat goes way back. From carrier pigeons to horse mounted cavalry to Hannibal riding an elephant to attack Rome. Humans have a long history of deploying wild beasts in wartime, but more recently, technology has mostly put an end to the practice. Mostly, today's episode is about war's toll on wildlife, both as an accidental casualty of combat and through deliberate exploitation. In 1965, Blair Irvine was on the verge of graduating from a small liberal arts college in California, but he was feeling lost. Then, two days before accepting his diploma, he was introduced to a marine biologist who happened to be looking for someone to fill a unique summer job.

[Blair Irvine]

I'm sitting next to his desk. He explained that they had this dolphin and he wanted to get that dolphin to Hawaii and needed somebody who would help the dolphin along the way.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Blair didn't have a science background. He was a sociology major. But with no job prospects and no idea what he wanted to do with his life, he said yes.

[Blair Irvine]

I don't think I'd ever even seen a video of dolphins. So I went out to see the dolphin before. I went a couple days beforehand and I standing down there with a Navy seaman, a young kid, and I'm watching this dolphin swim in this area and he said, that's the dolphin you're going to carry to Hawaii. This is very embarrassing. At this age. But I said well what's that thing on the top of this, on the top of his head where it seems like water or air is coming out?

[Zach Goldbaum]

And that was the blowhole?

[Blair Irvine]

That was the blowhole, yes. And I, you know subsequently I learned a lot more about blow holes and dolphins of course.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Soon after, Blair boarded a cargo plane with a female bottlenose dolphin named Alice. When the summer came to a close, someone he'd met on his journey to Hawaii gave him a call with a new full time job offer for a secret project with the US Navy at a base called Point Magoo.

[Blair Irvine]

Point Magoo is the naval air station about 25 miles north of Malibu along the coast of Southern California. There's a big lagoon and facing the ocean from that lagoon is a very thin peninsula and that's where the marine mammal facility was.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Blair had been invited to become a dolphin trainer for a program he did not even know existed.

[Blair Irvine]

In the early 60s the Navy started to become much more interested in marine mammals, especially whales and dolphins because their submarines are running around and their ships are running around and then they think about well this dolphin can swim up and down and so on and marine, maybe we've seen them in Oceanaria. Why don't we train one to see if it could help us somehow?

[Zach Goldbaum]

It wasn't just the Navy that was interested in dolphins. In the 1960s dolphins were in the zeitgeist. The year before Blair started at Point Mugu, Flipper, a hugely popular TV series about a crime fighting dolphin had premiered on NBC.

[Blair Irvine]

They call him Flipper.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Flipper. This was all happening at the same time that the Cold war was intensifying. Both the US and our Soviet enemies were secretly experimenting with all sorts of strangers than fiction, weaponry, things like psychokinesis or the ability to move objects with your mind. There were attempts to geoengineer the weather and the CIA even conducted experiments with high doses of lsd. And I guess in that one way me and the CIA aren't so different after all. It was in the midst of that Cold War hysteria that Blair Irvine showed up for his first day of work.

[Blair Irvine]

I'm walking in totally naive. And when I first came out, the first day I was there was the last day of the current trainer. He's an old circus trainer. So I went to see him do his last training stint with his dolphin named Tuffy, who I was going to inherit offshore.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Tuffy, which was short for tough guy, was kept in a large ocean pen not far from the shore. So Blair and the outgoing trainer jump in an amphibious vehicle called a duck boat to visit him. When they get there, Blair finally meets Tuffy, a roughly 7 foot long, 250 pound dolphin with a scar from an old shark bite he'd survived before he was taken into captivity.

[Blair Irvine]

The guy who is the trainer climbs in this little, what we call a pulpit so he's half emerged in the water. And he puts a harness in the water so Tuffy can go and swim into the harness so they can do the work they want to do. And Tuffy approaches it. Bang. Tuffy bites him, the old circus trainer. And here I am going, oh, my God, what the hell am I getting into here? And that's my introduction to the dolphin. I'm going to train.

[Zach Goldbaum]

At first, training Tuffy seemed hopeless.

[Blair Irvine]

Tuffy was a throwaway because he was untrainable. They'd lower the water to do something and he'd run around snapping and feet and ankles and things. That's why they called him Tuffy.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But eventually, another young trainer figured out an unconventional way to get through to Tuffy.

[Blair Irvine]

Early on, he would come by her with an erection and rub her leg. So she let him do that if he was doing what she wanted, but if he wasn't, then she would move her leg away. And so that's part of the way she got him to come around to become a dolphin who could be trained.

[Zach Goldbaum]

I wish I could say that I never thought I'd be talking about dolphin erections on the podcast, but deep down, I think I always knew. Anyway, once Tuffy warmed up, Blair was able to break through to him too. They developed a bond. But through it all, Blair, like the dolphin he trained, remained a tough guy.

[Blair Irvine]

I was always interested in them and curious about them and feeling compassion towards them, but not this. I mean, some people get pretty gaga over dolphins, and it's never been part of my shtick, if you will. I never fell in love with them.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Blair's stoic approach to the work paid off. In one early experiment, Blair, Tuffy and four naval vessels sailed to an island off the coast of Los Angeles. They trained Tuffy to mark the location of an undetonated anti submarine rocket. In another, they traveled to a series of islands near Santa Barbara so Tuffy could track down sea mines.

[Blair Irvine]

So this is the non warfare part of the way dolphins can help the Navy with efficiency in terms of solving some problems that save money, essentially was the deal. On one hand it was Buck Rogers, on the other hand it was Boy Scouts.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The Navy learned a lot about what marine mammals could do. They could Locate and retrieve lost objects. They could guard boats and submarines and even perform underwater surveillance. Tuffy himself learned how to deliver mail and tools to an underwater research lab and could guide lost divers back to safety. Then, two years into Blair's tenure with the Navy, he's called into his superior's office.

[Blair Irvine]

So about this time, Vietnam was starting to heat up. This is 1968, and so they, they brought me into the office and I remember everybody, the brass was there and even somebody wearing a tie and, and they're just looking at me and they say, can you teach a dolphin to find swimmers? And I went, I guess, how do you want to do it? And they said, we don't care, just figure it out.

[Zach Goldbaum]

By this point, the program had seemed largely harmless. The dolphins were being used in a defensive capacity and as an efficiency tool. But this is the United States military, which likes to boast that it's the most lethal fighting force in the world. So it seemed like it was only a matter of time before the program transformed into something else. Was there ever an instance where you were asked to train the dolphin to kill?

[Blair Irvine]

No, just the idea of training an animal to kill a human. The whole concept is wrong from my point of view. They never asked me to do that. And I also said that if that was to be my next project, I quit.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Eventually, Blair did decide to leave the program. His departure had nothing to do with killer dolphins. He was simply ready to move on. The marine mammal program continued without him. And a couple years after he left, stories began to trickle out about how the Navy had begun using dolphins in combat. It's 1971 in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. It's a deep water inlet tucked off the coast of the South China Sea. Its high green hills hide one of the largest US Naval bases in the country. As the Vietnam war rages, six US Naval recruits patrol the waters. Their job protecting a fleet parked along the white sandy beaches from North Vietnamese military scuba divers. These recruits can spot a swimmer up to 1,200ft away. That's because they're, wait for it. Military dolphins. And their sonar allows them to notice high frequency pings that bounce underwater. Suddenly, a 300 pound bottlenose dolphin takes off through the water, sensing an unfamiliar object moving toward the ships it's trained to protect. His long snout is fitted with a muzzle carrying a heavy gauge hollow needle connected to a CO2 cartridge. When the dolphin nears the North Vietnamese swimmer, he plunges the needle through his wetsuit. Here's how one CIA dolphin researcher describes what allegedly happened after ripping the muscle planes of tissue apart, the continuing expansion of the gas brings about the prolapse of the colon through the rectal orifice, while the stomach in turn is caused to balloon through the mouth. To put it More simply, the CO2 makes the swimmer explode. The Navy vehemently denied the specific story I just told you, which was first reported in penthouse magazine in 1977. I swear I only read it for the article. The Navy also denied anyone was ever killed by dolphins in Vietnam or that killer dolphins even existed. Blair, too, thinks the story is bs.

[Blair Irvine]

So much of this is developed by the media. You know, somebody's got a great idea and then they talk about it, and then it suddenly has become something that really happened. I'm certainly not the to know because every time I read any article like that, I went, oh, that's baloney.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Baloney or not, six years after this incident supposedly took place, something happened in Hawaii that gave a bit more credence to the fantastical tale of the killer dolphins. One morning in 1977, Dolphin researchers headed into work at the Oceanarium at the University of Hawaii. They unlocked the doors, and as they peered into the school's massive tank, they expected to see two Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Instead, they found two toy rubber dolphins bobbing in the pool. Each had a note. One said, slave no more, and the other, let my people go. Months later, Michael Greenwood, a scientist formerly hired by the Navy, would testify that the CIA was planning to sell those two dolphins to kill enemy swimmers in Latin America. So in the dead of night, two of his younger associates freed the dolphins into the wild. At the trial for one of the men who was being charged with theft, Greenwood told the jury that while he wasn't sure if divers were killed in Kamaran Bay, he knew that there were dolphin recruits being used as weapons in the war effort. I asked Blair Irvine about Greenwood's comments in the the Kamaran Bay incident, but he was still skeptical. He had seen the CIA's counterpart to the Naval Marine Mammal program, and to put it bluntly, it was a shit show.

[Blair Irvine]

The dolphins were apparently fornicating under the pier and all sorts of stuff, and so that's why I got the job. We got the job is because the CIA had screwed it up so badly.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Whatever the truth, the program and the tall tales that surfaced alongside it were part of a great power rivalry. We were dreaming up new ways to outwit and outmaneuver our adversaries, but they were never far behind.

[Blair Irvine]

We sort of heard, but again, probably through the Media that the Russians had a comparable program to ours. I mean, it made sense. Why wouldn't they?

[Zach Goldbaum]

And a declassified document from 1976 confirmed that the CIA was aware that a similar program existed. Within the next year, the report reads, the Soviets could train marine mammals to be used in military operational systems in the black Sea.

[Blair Irvine]

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[Zach Goldbaum]

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[Blair Irvine]

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[Zach Goldbaum]

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[Blair Irvine]

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[Zach Goldbaum]

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[Blair Irvine]

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[Zach Goldbaum]

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[Blair Irvine]

Carrie.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Oh, wait, we're recording a commercial right now. We gotta tell them why we're doing this. Oh, yeah, sorry, POD listeners. Okay, so we're five besties who've been friends for five million years. And we love games, so of course we made our own. It's called quick, quick, quick. You just pick a card and have your partner give three answers to an outrageous question. It's fast, fun, fantastic, and a bunch.

[Blair Irvine]

Of other funny adjectives.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Anyone can play your mom, your dad, your kitten, your kids, your auntie Edna, and even your butcher. And you know, it's incredible.

[Blair Irvine]

There are no wrong answers.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Just open your brain and say, what's in it. Just quickly. And you're not gonna believe this. Well, you might. Once you start playing. It's as much fun to watch as it is to play seriously. So get up and go.

[Blair Irvine]

Grab your copy now at Target and Amazon.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Quick, quick, quick. It's the fastest way to have fun. In 1966, just a year after Blair Irvine arrived at Point Mugu, the Soviet navy started its own dolphin research program in the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol. The Russians were well aware of the American program and conducted similar research experiments to test the efficacy of dolphin surveillance and weapon retrieval. But they also allegedly thought a bit more outside the box, especially their chief trainer, a marine biologist named Dr. Boris Gharid. The Moscow Times reported that once in the mid-1980s, Dr. Jharid found himself in a helicopter hovering about 50ft above the sea of Japan. He's with a companion, someone you wouldn't expect to see inside of a helicopter. A slippery character that. Okay, who am I kidding? At this point in the story, you probably figured out that it's a dolphin. There's a dolphin in the helicopter. Dr. Girid releases the dolphin, who is wearing a parachute. Then he follows the creature into the water below. Dr. Girid is trying to see if they could be used as naval rescue animals. Unclear where he landed on that one other than inside the Sea of Japan. But a few years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Dr. Jharid was no longer doing high flying escapades.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

Everyone knows there was Sevastopol.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Ukrainian marine biologist and zoologist Dr. Pavel Goldin again. He grew up in Crimea and remembers seeing the Russians dolphin program in Sevastopol.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

I visited it when I was a student and I talked to the researchers who worked there. That's how I've met Dr. Jharid.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After the Soviet Union collapsed, Crimea became part of Ukraine, and the Sevastopol Naval Dolphinarium was open to the public for dolphin shows. Dr. Gharid stuck around the naval base at Sevastopol, and it was transformed into an oceanarium for tourists. The dolphin soldiers became entertainment for school children. By the early 2000s, the facility had fallen on hard times. And unable to afford food and medicine for his animals, Dr. Jharid sold all 27 of his dolphins, sea lions, beluga whales and seals to Iran. Dr. Boris Jharid refused to abandon his animals. So he and his wife picked up and relocated to Iran, saying, I'm prepared to go to Allah or even the devil, as long as my animals will be okay there. Dr. Gharid's departure seemed to mark the end of Russia's military marine mammal program. But in 2014, Russia would illegally annex Crimea, seizing the dolphinarium in the process. Then, a few years later, something strange would surface in the frigid waters of the Arctic that made it clear the program was very much alive. Norway's Ingoya island is home to a tiny fishing village and not much else. It sits on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, only accessible by boat. But it's where Norwegian commercial fisherman Joar Hesten and his family call home. On the afternoon of April 26, 2019, Yoar was at sea with his brother and father. He's changing nets when he suddenly sees a white object flash in the water. At first he thinks it's a halibut. They're known to do what's called sunbathing, where they bask at the surface of the water. But when the boat gets closer, he realizes it's something else, something he's never seen in the more than 20 years he's fished in these waters. A beluga whale. As the whale continues to swim alongside the boat, Yoar notices that there's something, maybe a rope wrapped around its body. The fishermen radio for help, worrying the whale is in distress. Soon, an officer from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries arrives. He has expertise in releasing whales from fishing equipment. But as the officer approaches the animal, he can see that he's not tangled in anything. He's strapped into a harness. Yoar steps onto the official's raft and they reach their hand out, trying to unstrap the harness. The whale continues to swim alongside the boat, but it's a struggle. They feed the whale fish. Then they start filming, putting the camera underwater to see how to get the obstruction off. The whale is playful, like he spent time around people before, but they still can't seem to get the harness off of him. Eventually, Yoar offers to go into the water. He puts on a wetsuit and jumps in. Finally, he reaches his hand down one last time and snap. He's able to get the harness off. Back on the boat, they notice that it's not just any harness. The strap has mounts for a GoPro camera, and printed on the buckle are the words Equipment st. Petersburg. It wouldn't take long for the story of the whale and its connection to Russia to go viral. And in Arctic Norway, a fishtail filled with intrigue after a beluga whale was spotted swimming around with a tight harness. The whale, seemingly used to human contact, had been fitted with a GoPro harness. The whale was wearing a harness marked Equipment St. Petersburg, prompting speculation it was a spy trained by the Russian navy. Norwegians dubbed the whale Valdemir Wal, meaning whale in Norwegian and dimir. Well, that's a plan. Vladimir. As in Vladimir Putin. While the world speculated about the meaning of the words on the buckle. Equipment, st. Petersburg. Russian journalist Sergey Dobrnin recognized it immediately.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

One of the first Russian producers of touristic gear, it was called equipment. So I knew immediately when I saw the logo that it was just bought from this company. It meant nothing, but so it was just a brand.

[Zach Goldbaum]

As an investigative reporter for Radio Free Europe, Sergei typically covers Russian military operations, spies and assassinations. So the story of a fugitive beluga whale, fun as it was, did not hold his interest.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

Then I forgot about it. And then about a year later, we just stumbled upon it doing totally different investigation.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in August of 2020. The suspected cause was a nerve agent developed during the Soviet Union called Novichok. Navalny miraculously survived, only to die in a Russian prison almost four years later. But Sergei wanted to know who was behind the revival of this lethal poison. He and his reporting partner, Mark Krutov decided to investigate. And they stumbled upon a suspicious group of Russian chemists.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

We noticed that these guys represent organization called Signal, but nobody ever heard about it. It was really strange organizations on its face.

[Zach Goldbaum]

SIGNAL did mundane research on stuff like nutritional supplements or sports drinks. But Sergey and other journalists from outlets like Bellingcat were able to learn that under the guise of civilian research, Signal continued to produce Novichok. That's like finding out that the people who make monster energy drinks are secretly in the poison business. Wait a minute, that. That actually sounds somewhat plausible. But Sergey's investigation did not stop there. He and his reporting partner learned that Signal is one of three organizations under the umbrella of a larger secretive entity called the Federal Service for Technical and Expert Control. And this is where it all connects back to marine mammals.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

And in Russia, these names of institutes are pretty often quite deceiving. So it's very generic.

[Zach Goldbaum]

These generic names camouflaged more sinister activities. In addition to SIGNAL and an organization building satellites that could shoot down other satellites, there was a third organization under this umbrella. It was based in the Arctic port town of Murmansk, just a few hundred kilometers from the small Norwegian island where Valdemir the beluga whale was spotted. To get a closer look at what this mysterious facility was up to, Sergey turns to a little tool those of us in the investigative journalism world like to call Google Maps.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

Google Maps sometimes has very decent satellite images and quite up to date.

[Zach Goldbaum]

As they zoom in on the map, they're struck by something in the water.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

You see, it's small, like, I think they were in the shape of octagons or something like that.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Inside these floating octagon shaped pens were a number of pale white dots. He thinks they're belugas. To confirm his suspicions, Sergei does the mundane work of scouring government procurement websites.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

So in state procurements, just your guess, what do they have to buy if they keep belugas?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Fish.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

Frozen fish. Yes.

[Zach Goldbaum]

This was the smoking gun they needed. The Russians were buying fish to feed two teams of marine mammals, one in the north and one in the south, in the Black Sea, at the Sevastopol Dolphinarium Valdmir was indeed an escaped military asset. Now, to this day, we don't know for sure what the Russians were up to with Valdemir. But the first theory that emerged is that Valdemir was a spy. The GoPro harness was used to secure a camera, and he was meant to film deep underwater. Not far from Valdemir's Arctic home are a series of deep sea cables, vital infrastructure that provides Internet and power for much of Europe. And if they are severed, it could upend daily life in Europe and crash global markets. But Sergei thinks this theory is far fetched. An underwater drone would be much more effective at severing those cables than an adorable whale. The second theory, and the one that seems the most plausible, is that the Belugas were placed in the port as guards. There's a fleet of nuclear powered submarines housed there. And like American trainer Blair Irvine's dolphins, the Belugas are effective at alerting their superiors to the presence of intruders. But whatever the real reason, Sergei thinks the re emergence of this program speaks to something deeper. A kind of Soviet era lost cause mythology that Russia can't quite shake.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

I still do remember Soviet times and when it all collapsed in the beginning of 90s, all of a sudden they were published a lot of books about mystical Soviet genius. But of course most of these books were complete bullshit.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's mythic self image was shattered, replaced by leaders like Boris Yeltsin, who was often drunk and clownish.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

People felt that Russia is also in the same way, like the bear that was mighty, but now that is used in circus.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Putin with his shirtless tough guy swagger wanted to reclaim that image. So he flipped the script and quite literally took animals from the circus and turned them into soldiers. Then in February 2022, that Cold War nostalgia exploded into full scale war.

[Steve Nash]

War.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And the fallout would reach far beyond the battlefield, into the seas themselves.

[Steve Nash]

Hey, basketball fans. Steve Nash here. Ready to elevate your basketball IQ? I'm teaming up with LeBron James to bring you the latest season of Mind the Game. And we're about to take you deeper into basketball than you've ever gone before. We're breaking down the real game, the X's and O's that actually matter. In every episode, we'll share elite level strategy, dive into career defining moments, and explain the why behind plays that changed a game, a team, or a championship. LeBron and I have lived this game at the highest level for decades. We've been in those pressure moments and made those game changing decisions and learn from the greatest basketball minds in history. Now we're pulling back the curtain and sharing that knowledge with you. Time to go beyond the highlights and get into the real heart of basketball. Watch Mind the game now on YouTube Prime Video, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And we start this hour in Ukraine, where the interior Minister has quoted as saying 24 towns and villages have now been flooded after a major dam was destroyed in the south of the country. The Kremlin spokesperson has denied that Russia was responsible. Just before dawn on June 6, 2023, two explosions destroyed the Kakova Dam, a hydropower facility on the Dnipro river, which flows directly into the Black Sea. The dam is massive, roughly 3km long, and the sabotage opened up a gusher of water that ultimately flooded some 80 Ukrainian towns and settlements. Hundreds died, some swept away in their sleep, never to be seen again. The damage is estimated at $14 billion, and the habitat destruction is still being calculated.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

We believe that some species, some local endemic species, could come to extinction because of this deluge.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Dr. Pavel Goldin again. Trillions of gallons of polluted water went rushing from the river into the Black Sea, killing sturgeon and mussels, inundating the sea with heavy metals and pesticides, causing a huge toxic algae bloom. But that is just one event. Inside the Black Sea, a new theater of war has opened. Cruise missiles and underwater drones have disturbed fragile ecosystems. And Dr. Golding fears that noise pollution from sonar and munitions could be harming wildlife as well. All of that pollution and detritus points to a potential culprit in the mystery that has consumed Dr. Golden. What is killing the Black Sea? Dolphins and porpoises. But as evidence mounts, Dr. Golden is careful not to speculate until his report is complete.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

I cannot explain in full details because the report is still under processing. But what can I say? During each dissection, we find found symptoms which have been new and unusual for us. Some of them, after all, appear to be more or less trivial. Others are still puzzling. We detected a lot of things we have never seen before.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The human toll of the war in Ukraine is staggering. Since February 2022, a half a million people have been killed or wounded on both sides and millions more displaced. Others, like Russian journalist Sergei Dobrynin, are unable to return home.

[Sergey Dobrynin]

There are a lot of places that I see in my dreams and that I really want to revisit again, but I try to push it out of my imagination and out of my thoughts, not to bother myself with this nostalgia.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Against all that Suffering. It can feel a little silly to worry about the plight of a relatively small population of dolphins and porpoises. But today, with the help of Dr. Goldin's research, Ukrainian prosecutors are taking steps to bring a case against Russia to the International Criminal Court on charges of ecocide. That's the deliberate destruction of the natural environment. And if the ICC elects to take it on, this could be the first major case of its kind argued at the Hague. While the case may include the Black Sea marine mammals, it does not cover the dolphins and whales being used as tools in the conflict. But Dr. Goldin says it should.

[Dr. Pavel Goldin]

Having dolphins in a military port during the war is a crime itself, and they cannot escape because they are in a cage. So it's like they putting them as hostages, you know, and torturing them in public.

[Zach Goldbaum]

According to satellite data obtained by the UK Ministry of Defense, Russia has invested heavily in securing their Sevastopol naval port with the help of marine mammals. There are nets, booms and pens at the harbor entrance, all holding what Dr. Goldin describes as hostages or what the military may view as animal soldiers. In Russia, it's a program that is still shrouded in mystery. But in the US that is no longer the case.

[Blair Irvine]

The Navy marine mammal program began in 1959 with a single dolphin. Over the decades, it's grown to become the world's third largest holder of marine mammals, about twice.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's a promotional video for the present day marine mammal program in the Navy. You can find it proudly displayed on their website.

[Blair Irvine]

Partnering with the animals, the Navy created its marine mammal systems to do what others can't. Jobs too tough for men or machine alarms alone.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In the video, seals dive into the water and dolphins, wearing harnesses, leave markers on the sea floor.

[Blair Irvine]

In return for their service, the animals are given absolutely the best care available anywhere in the world.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In some ways, the program is the same as it's always been, a defensive tool to monitor the seas and protect military assets. But in other ways, it's changed a lot. New technology, new trainers, and of course, new animals.

[Blair Irvine]

Tuffy, when I started training for swimmer defense, he went to another trainer.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Remember former US Navy trainer Blair Irvine, the guy who said he never fell in love with dolphins?

[Blair Irvine]

Eventually, Tuffy had some kind of a disease where he lost weight, he couldn't eat. And Tuffy was out just right next to the deck, and two dolphins were supporting him because he could hardly breathe. And then all of a sudden, he took one final exhalation and he died. And the dolphins brought him over. Such is life funny even after all these years. Every time they tell this story, I act the same way. So you know the hard bitten caustic guy who doesn't care about dolphins actually sort of does.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Dolphins may not be man's best friend, but as Blair Irvine learned, they're remarkable creatures. Smart, playful, fiercely loyal. Recruited as soldiers, they've protected us at our most vulnerable. But in war and in peace, we have not returned the favor. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wonder App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey. On the next episode of Lawless Planet an explosion at a shipyard in Pakistan exposes an entire shadowy industry that wreaks havoc on the environment and has been killing and maiming workers for years. There's these giant ships that look like it's a complete shipwreck on the beach. It's like almost apocalyptic looking. If you want to hear more about the history of the US And Russian marine mammal programs, check out the BBC documentary Secrets of the Spy Whale. And be sure to check out Sergey Dobernin and Mark Krutov's reporting in Radio Free Europe. Lawless Planet is written, produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. Our senior producer and senior Story editor is Derek John. Senior producer for Wondry is Andy Herman. Our senior Managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our Managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our Associate producer is Lexi Peary. Sound design and music by Kenny Kusiak. Dialogue edit by George Drabing Hicks. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frison Sync. Fact checking by Brian Punyant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for Wondry. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

[Blair Irvine]

Wondering.