Another critical blow: Ukraine eliminates s‑400 in Crimea

The Russian Federation's army has had to acknowledge the superiority of Ukrainian weapons. Ukrainian defenders eliminated another valuable S-400 Triumf air defence system in the Bakhchisaray region of Crimea. The destruction was confirmed through satellite images.

Recently, the S-300/400 air defense complexes have become priority targets for the Ukrainians. As a result, there are increasing public claims that targeting these Russian weapons with artillery systems is a form of preparation before the arrival of the F-16 in Ukraine.

Let us recall that the last recorded destruction of the Russian S-300/400 systems took place during the June attack in the Belgorod region. Previously, a successful attack on these complexes occurred at the Dzhankoi airport in Crimea, where Ukrainian MGM-140 ATACMS missiles struck.

Valuable air defense systems are dwindling alarmingly, and the Russians cannot replace their losses in real-time. This is due to the costly and time-consuming nature of the process. Additionally, while the arsenal of the Russian Federation includes around 100 divisions equipped with the S-300/400, their army needs up to 1,000 divisions for effective defense – as previously calculated by military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko.

The reserves of the S-400 in Russia continue to shrink as Ukrainians report another successful attack, destroying a Triumf complex, specifically the 92N6 radar and the 51P6 launcher. The Ukrainian armed forces did not specify the weapon used for the shelling. However, it is known that the attack occurred in Crimea, in the Bakhchisaray region near Sevastopol.

The history of the S-400 dates back to the 1970s when the USSR was armed with the S-300P system. In the following decade, it developed a new tool to counter all air threats (aircraft, helicopters, and various types of missiles). Engineers planned to create a weapon with an increased range compared to its predecessor (up to 250 miles).

This task was accomplished because the S-400 Triumf is adapted to shoot 40N6 long-range missiles, reaching up to 250 miles. Furthermore, the new design can handle the missiles used by the older S-300PMU2 Favorit (48N6E, 48N6E2) system.

The missile arsenal adapted for the S-400 complex includes single-stage 9M96E (range 25 miles) and 9M96E2 (range 75 miles) rockets. These missiles were designed to counter aircraft and are characterized by high strike accuracy. The probability of unmanned aerial vehicles hitting a plane with these missiles is 0.9 and 0.8. The maximum altitude of the 9M96E and 9M96E2 is 22 miles.