‘I’m shot, I’m going down’: Kyiv strikes with killer boat drone
Ukrainian special forces have shot down a Russian military helicopter flying off the Crimean coast in the first successful sea-to-air engagement of its kind.
Ukrainian special forces shot down a Russian military helicopter flying off the Crimean coast in the first successful sea-to-air engagement of its kind.
Team 13 of Ukraine’s military intelligence, HUR, said that they had carried out a raid on Crimea yesterday morning, with their drones firing missiles at a pair of Russian Mi-8 helicopters dispatched to sink them. The special forces unit released a video of the encounter, apparently filmed by a drone, that showed the unmanned boat ploughing through the waves as machinegun bullets rained from a helicopter above. The feed switches to a targeting camera showing the Mi-8 gunship in the drone’s crosshairs, before it launched a pair of missiles from the swell.
The first Mi-8 pops flares as it attempts to evade one missile before plunging into the sea after an apparent strike. The second narrowly escapes another missile launch, although military intelligence said it had been damaged during the attack.
HUR shared audio with The Times it said was a radio intercept from the second Russian helicopter: “I’m going down! [This] is 482, I’m going down! Going to Kimba [air base]. I’m shot down! Follow me, I’m shot! [This is] 482, I can continue my flight. There was a blast, I was hit. Engines are OK for now. The shot was from the water! After that there was one more flash. I didn’t see, where exactly it was directed. First one was directed exactly at me. It exploded near me and I could feel it on the helicopter, some systems stopped working.”
Team 13 said it used Magura V5 unmanned surface vehicles, usually equipped with explosives to ram Russian vessels, but adapted to fire a pair of Sea Dragon missiles, a modified version of the R-73 air-to-air missile. The battle took place off Crimea’s Tarkhankut Peninsula, more than 100 miles from the Ukrainian-controlled coastline.
The Times visited the elite team at a secret base last year and saw how they were adapting existing models for a range of new tasks. They have helped to sink a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, a retired senior RAF commander, said the Ukrainians had developed drone capability that would allow it to “take away any sanctuary for air platforms over the sea”. For now the drone is most likely to be effective against slower targets like helicopters but could one day hit jets, he said. Bagwell said he had seen “nothing in service” with this power among the world’s biggest militaries, including those of the US, Britain, Russia and China, adding: “This type of capability is placed on capital ships for their own or their task groups protection. Major navies are slowly adopting maritime drones – they are all experimenting with them.”
HI Sutton, a naval expert, said the new Ukrainian craft had two possible uses. “The missiles provide the drone with a degree of self-protection. The craft is now better at defending itself against Russian helicopters and fast jets. One or two of the FrankenSAM USVs [unmanned surface vessels], mixed in with a larger force of regular USVs, may be enough to inhibit Russian attempts to interdict them,” he wrote in a post on the site Naval News, after a modified drone was first spotted in May.
“The system opens the possibility of using them to ambush Russian aircraft as they take-off or land on Crimean air bases. The USVs can sit off the Crimean coast and pick off the aircraft … unawares.”
The Times
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