Ukrainian drones have struck and damaged a Russian radar system on gas production platforms in the Black Sea, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Kyiv used airborne and maritime drones to target gas platforms, colloquially known as the Boyko Towers, near the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine, Kyiv’s SBU security service said on Monday.
Videos of the strikes have circulated widely, but the footage could not be independently verified. Russian authorities have not publicly responded to the reported attack.
Kyiv has successfully forced the Black Sea Fleet to shift away from Sevastopol, further east in the Black Sea. Moscow has moved many of its vessels toward its Novorossiysk base, and satellite imagery indicates Russia is establishing another Black Sea base in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Monday it had destroyed a Russian radar system and warehouses on the gas production platforms in an initial airborne attack, quickly followed up by a waterborne drone strike.
The SBU said Russian forces used the platforms to monitor airborne and sea activity. It added that storage facilities and a residential unit had also been destroyed.
The security service published footage purporting to show drones approaching the platforms, followed by an explosion and a plume of smoke.
Russia had captured a series of gas drilling platforms from Ukraine shortly after it annexed Crimea in 2014.
In September 2023, Ukraine said it regained control of the Boyko Towers.
Ukraine’s navy has no large warships, but has worked alongside the other branches of Kyiv’s military and security agencies to threaten Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine has prioritised unmanned naval systems in its campaign against Russian forces in the Black Sea, wielding homegrown drones, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and long-range missile strikes to target vessels and key facilities, partly on the annexed Crimean Peninsula that Moscow has controlled for a decade, and at the Novorossiysk base in mainland Russia.
The SBU has also previously used naval and aerial drones in attacks on the Kerch Bridge and Russian warships.
By mid-2024, Ukrainian officials said that their forces had destroyed or disabled roughly one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said it was plugging away to develop new ways “to clear the Black Sea from Russian invaders.”
The battle for dominance in the Black Sea will continue as peace talks rumble on, so far with little progress toward a concrete ceasefire agreement despite intense pressure from the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump.
© 2025, GDC. © GDC and www.globaldefensecorp.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to www.globaldefensecorp.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
