In the early hours of 14 September, Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed a Russian S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missiles complex near Yevpatoria in occupied Crimea, according to Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne referring to its unnamed sources in Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).
Earlier Russian official sources claimed that the Russian military and Navy repelled an aerial drone attack near Yevpatoria and a subsurface naval drone attack in the Black Sea:
Explosions in occupied Crimea’s Yevpatoria: Russians claim air and sea drone attacks
Suspilne says the operation was conducted by the SBU’s counterintelligence department and the Ukrainian Navy and involved aerial attack drones and the Neptune domestically produced cruise missiles.
First, the SBU drones hit radars and antennas – the “eyes” of the SAM complex. After the radar stations were disabled, the Navy hit the S-400 Triumf launchers with two Neptune cruise missiles, according to Suspilne sources.
The S-400 Triumf is Russia’s most advanced long-range anti-aircraft missile system.
“Sources in the Security Service said that new surprises await the Russians in Crimea,” Suspilne wrote.
A Ukrainian missile attack destroyed a Russian Navy ship and a submarine in occupied Sevastopol the previous day.
Russian sources report regular attacks on military facilities in occupied Crimea, primarily involving one-way attack drones.
Previously, top Ukrainian Army generals, Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, called occupied Crimea Russia’s “center of gravity” in the Russo-Ukrainian war, saying that only an “effective influence on the enemy’s center of gravity” could change the course of the war.
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