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Ukraine claims to have blown up a Russian S-400 missile defense system in Crimea. Photo/Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
KYIV – The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced on Wednesday that Kyiv forces had blown up a Russian S-400 missile defense system in Crimea.
“The explosion completely destroyed the system, the missile and personnel,” said the military intelligence agency of Ukraine, GUR, in a statement, which was accompanied by a video of the explosion, as quoted by The Moscow Times, Thursday (24/8/2023).
Without identifying the weapon that destroyed the Russian S-400, the intelligence agency said “the explosion occurred” on the Tarkhankut Peninsula in western Crimea.
“Given the limited number of such systems in the enemy’s arsenal, this is a serious blow to the invaders’ air defense systems,” GUR said.
If these claims are true, it would be the third Russian S-400 system destroyed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine 18 months ago, according to calculations by the Dutch open-source intelligence project Oryx.
The Russian military has yet to comment on the GUR report.
The S-400 Triumf surface-to-air system entered service with the Russian military in 2007.
This defense weapon is one of the most sophisticated of a number of missile systems in the world. Apart from Russia, the S-400 is also owned by China, India and Turkey.
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