S-400 radars, S-400 launchers, Tor SAM systems, and two FPV drone warehouses were hit. Strikes were also carried out in the Caspian Sea — against an oil production platform, a Molniya-class missile boat, and the vessel Port Olya 2 involved in transporting military cargo between Russia and Iran.
Ukraine attacked part of an advanced Russian air defense system deployed in Crimea, according to Ukrainian authorities, as Kyiv plugs away with its campaign to cut off the annexed peninsula from Moscow.
Ukrainian troops “destroyed” the launcher from a Russian S-400 missile defense system and a radar in Crimea overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said on Monday.
Launchers are the part of ground-based air defense systems that fire interceptor missiles, which are designed to take out an incoming threat, like a drone, jet, helicopter or different types of missiles. S-400s, also known as Triumf systems, are widely considered the most sophisticated air defenses Russia is able to widely deploy against Ukraine.
They are a rough equivalent to the U.S. military‘s vaunted Patriot air defense system and are an attractive target for Kyiv.
The S-400 is sometimes referred to by its NATO moniker, SA-21. Russia says it can take out targets up to 400 kilometers, or 250 miles, away.
Several countries have bought the system from Russia, including its close ally, Belarus, and Turkey—a NATO member that balances its ties to Western countries with cordial relations with Moscow. (Though, according to several reports, Ankara has recently been looking to resell the unused S-400s in order to convince the U.S. to lift sanctions related to this initial purchase. Russia has confirmed talks with Turkey over this issue.)
A brief clip posted by the GUR appears to show an airborne drone flying over Crimea before careening into a launcher system. Newsweek could not independently verify the footage and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Russia’s government said on Sunday it had intercepted 133 Ukrainian drones from late Saturday into the early hours of Sunday, including over Crimea and the Black Sea. It did not specify how many of these drones were spotted over Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, turning the territory into a base for its military operations against mainland Ukraine and a popular tourist destination for Russian holidaymakers.
Kyiv has vowed to reclaim Crimea and other regions internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, while Russia insists it will not give up control of the territory it currently controls.
Kyiv has intensified its attacks on Crimea in recent months, using new medium-range drones to isolate the area from Russia, disrupt fuel supplies and key logistics routes from Russia through to Moscow-held chunks of southern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Sunday Kyiv was able to strike Russian targets more than 3,000 kilometers away (1,800 miles), forcing Russia to relocate the “vast majority” of its air defenses to protect the capital, official Kremlin residences, the major city of St Petersburg and the Crimean Bridge.
The Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, connects Russia’s Krasnodar region and the peninsula. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally unveiled the construction in 2018, the bridge quickly becoming a symbol reviled by Ukraine and one that frequently comes under Ukrainian attack.
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