Toloka TLK-150

Ukraine's small semi-submersible underwater strike drone, designed to approach targets with its hull submerged and only a slim sensor-and-communications mast exposed.

Overview

The Toloka TLK-150 is the smallest publicly described member of Ukraine's Toloka underwater-drone family. It is a compact uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) intended for one-way maritime strike missions against ships below the waterline, especially in the Black Sea context created by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The design's defining feature is not deep-diving endurance but low surface signature: the hull runs submerged while a narrow mast carries navigation, sensor and communications elements.

Open-source reporting identifies the TLK-150 as Ukraine's first publicly disclosed indigenous UUV design. H I Sutton's 2023 Naval News profile described it as a new Ukrainian underwater weapon concept aimed at Russian Navy vessels, while later Ukrainian defense reporting treated it as part of a broader Toloka family that also includes larger TLK-400 and TLK-1000 designs. No source in the available public record confirms that the TLK-150 has entered Ukrainian Navy service, received a production order, or been used in combat.

Development

The TLK-150 first appeared publicly around April-May 2023 at the launch of Brave1, Ukraine's government-backed defense-technology coordination platform. Naval News reported on 10 May 2023 that the full-size TLK-150 model or prototype was the first indigenous Ukrainian UUV to be revealed. A later Kyiv Post report described the system as a Brave1 project, still at prototype stage, and said production was expected within weeks; that 2023 production expectation is not corroborated by later sources and should be treated as unfulfilled or unverified.

The program reappeared in public in February 2025, when an externally redesigned TLK-150 was shown in a video released during the "Support Ukraine" summit in Kyiv. Defense Express assessed that the new hull looked closer to a serial-production model than the 2023 prototype, with the motors moved from mid-body stabilizers to the tail and the center keel removed. Militarnyi likewise interpreted the redesign as evidence that sea trials may have been underway, but neither source confirmed a formal test record, service entry, or order.

By September 2025, reporting at Brave1 Defense Tech Valley in Lviv referred to Toloka as a developer or company exhibiting its own underwater systems. UNITED24 Media, RBC-Ukraine and Defense Express described a wider Toloka family, but no source names a parent legal entity, founders, investors, or subsystem suppliers beyond the Toloka name.

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