Russian air defence system destroyed in Crimea, Ukraine says

BBC News:

Ukraine says it has destroyed a sophisticated Russian air defence system in occupied Crimea.

Kyiv’s security service (SBU) and navy carried out the attack on a Russian facility near Yevpatoriya using cruise missiles and drones, a Ukrainian intelligence source told the BBC.

Video footage on social media showed a fire and smoke near the city, in the west of the Russian-occupied peninsula.

Moscow has yet to directly comment on the claim.

Instead, the Russian defence ministry said it had shot down several Ukrainian aerial drones and thwarted a separate attack on a naval patrol vessel.

Earlier on Thursday, a number of explosions were reported in the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally occupied in 2014.

According to the BBC’s intelligence source, the Ukrainian operation used drones to take out a radar equipment, then cruise missiles to hit air defence missile launchers.

“After disabling the radar stations, the navy units hit the S300 and S400 ‘Triumph’ systems, worth $1.2bn, by two Neptune cruise missiles,” the source said.

Recently, the Ukrainian military announced that they had started to domestically designed Neptune cruise missiles.

No details were provided on the number of the batteries that had been hit.

Citing local residents, Ukrainian media reported that explosions happened at around 05:40 local time (02:40 GMT) and smoke was seen near the military base.

BBC Verify has analysed footage on social media of smoke rising and believes it to be of the attack on Yevpatoriya.