Ukraine says it eliminated Russian air-defence system in Crimea

Latest strike to target occupied peninsula used Ukrainian-made cruise missiles, official says

Russian S-400 air-defence systems roll along Moscow’s Read Square for a Victory Day parade. Picture: AFP

Ukrainian forces destroyed one of Russia’s most advanced air-defence systems in Crimea, a Ukrainian security official said, striking a fresh blow to Russia’s military on the occupied peninsula that serves as a critical logistical base for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The strike in the early hours of Thursday morning used drones and Ukrainian-made cruise missiles to target the S-400 missile system near Yevpatoriya in western Crimea, the official said. Videos shared online showed a fireball and a plume of smoke near the city.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said it had destroyed 11 Ukrainian aerial drones over Crimea, without commenting on any damage sustained by its own forces. Russian military correspondents published satellite images that they said suggested the strike destroyed at least one missile launcher of an S-400 or less-advanced S-300 system.

The operation marks the first officially confirmed use of the Ukrainian-produced Neptune missile to attack a target on the ground. Neptune is a ground-launched antiship missile, designed and produced in Ukraine based on a Soviet-era weapon. It shot to prominence in April 2022 when it was used to sink the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The missile, which has a range of about 200 miles, was later adapted to strike ground targets. Ukraine has received cruise missiles from the U.K. and France, but stocks are limited and the U.S. and Germany are still deliberating whether to approve Kyiv’s requests for further long-range weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month said Ukraine was upgrading production facilities and could produce “colossal numbers” of missiles, including Neptunes.

The strikes come a day after Ukraine hit Russian Navy dry docks in the Crimean port of Sevastopol with missiles, damaging a Russian submarine and a large landing ship in one of the 18-month-old war’s most spectacular blows to Russian naval power. In another attack Thursday, the Ukrainian military said that it had struck and damaged two Russian patrol ships in the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that one of its patrol boats had repelled an attack using naval drones in the Black Sea.

The assaults are part of a Ukrainian strategy to use missiles and drones to target military and logistics facilities on the peninsula. Crimea is a critical supply hub for Russian forces resisting Ukraine’s slow and bloody counteroffensive that is aimed at cutting the so-called “land corridor” between Russia and the peninsula in two. Ukrainian officials say Russia struggles to replace modern air-defence systems, which could make it easier for Ukraine to hit other targets in Crimea.

“We need to open up the sky over the peninsula in order to be able to actively destroy Russian military and warehouse infrastructure,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser.

Ukrainian officials hinted that Wednesday’s operation was carried out using Storm Shadow missiles provided by the U.K. The Thursday strike used Ukrainian weapons. Aerial drones from the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, targeted the S-400 system’s radars, then two Neptune cruise missiles fired by Ukrainian Naval Forces took out its missile launchers, the Ukrainian security official said.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as HUR, said in August that a Russian S-400 system had been destroyed in an explosion on the western tip of Crimea. Ukraine’s top presidential security adviser, Oleksiy Danilov, said the strike had been carried out using a new Ukrainian missile, without giving details.

Ukraine’s attack on two Russian patrol ships, meanwhile, is the latest to target Russian vessels in the Black Sea. The Russian defence ministry named one of the ships that was attacked as the Sergei Kotov patrol ship, marking the second time in recent months that Russia claims to have repelled a naval-drone assault on the vessel. The British Defence Ministry said in July that the corvette had been deployed to the southern Black Sea region to patrol the shipping lane between the Bosporus and Odesa, Ukraine’s main port. Russia in July pulled out of a deal to allow Ukrainian grain to be exported globally, fuelling an escalating confrontation in the Black Sea.

Serhii Bosak contributed to this article

The Wall Street Journal