Ukrainian special operators on Tuesday killed a manned aircraft by a long-range robotic boat for the first time in history Crimeawest coast in the early morning hours.
Nighttime video from an onboard camera showed a Ukrainian Magura V5 Navy drone moving at high speed through choppy seas and coming under fire from at least two circling Russian Mi-8 helicopters.
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The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Service (RENT) published the battle footage and said the battle took place near Cape Tarkhankut, the far western tip of Russian-occupied Crimea. At least one other boat is also visible, dodging Russian machine gun fire between splashes.
The HUR statement said the drones launched multiple R-73 SeeDragon missiles — a Soviet-era air-to-air missile adapted by Ukraine for maritime use — and downed a Mi-8 helicopter before damaging a second, forcing it to flee.
The video shows two rocket launches with one apparent hit, and likely fire from a drone-mounted machine gun on the Russian helicopters with unclear results.
HUR later published one alleged recording from one of the Russian pilots who reported being hit by one of the anti-aircraft missiles at sea.
“There was an explosion and I was hit. The shot came from the sea. Then there was another flash. I was already too busy to see where that went. But the first one flew straight at me and exploded somewhere nearby, and I felt some systems in the helicopter were failing,” the pilot reportedly said.
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The damaged helicopter has reportedly returned to base. Russian milbloggers have widely confirmed the involvement and shooting. DvaMayora, a pro-Moscow military information Telegram channel with 1.2 million followers, criticized Russia’s air and naval leadership for failing to take defensive measures against a known threat.
“It’s sad, but the tactics of using R-73 with MBEK (robotic motorboats) have been known for several months. As seen in the footage previously recorded in (the HUR video), machine guns from enemy surface platforms are also used. The speed of response (of the Russian authorities) to new technological challenges is extremely low.
“(…) we consider it extremely important to draw attention to the fact that (the Ukrainian army) has now received battle-tested protective equipment against aerial threats from its ‘mosquito fleet’,” the post said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not yet responded to the reports.
According to the HUR statement, the Russian helicopters had been ambushed. In previous Ukrainian naval drone attacks on Russian naval targets – both attempted and successful – a frequent Russian counter-tactic has been to launch helicopter gunships to seek out and destroy the Ukrainian naval drones.
The battle off the coast of Crimea took place amid ongoing Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on land targets on the peninsula itself and the Russian regions of Kursk, Smolensk and Rostov. It was unclear whether the sea battle between Magura and Mi-8 was related to those land attacks.
Prior to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian naval forces led by the Sevastopol-based Black Sea Fleet dominated the minuscule armed forces that had naval power. The latter consisted of only a handful of small patrol boats and anti-ship missile batteries.
Since then, Ukraine’s military and special operations forces have eliminated more than a third of the ships registered as part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet using homegrown and state-donated weapons from NATO.
The sinking with the highest profile was the The flagship Moscow of the Black Sea Fleet in April 2022.
The most effective weapons used by the Ukrainians are naval drones, such as the Magura V5, which combines a low radar profile, high speed and a carrying capacity of up to half a ton of explosives.
Storm Shadow/SCALP anti-ship missiles donated by Britain and France have also been used to destroy Russian warships.
The most successful Storm Shadow attack of the war to date occurred on September 13, 2023, when a wave of precision-guided Storm Shadow missiles a Russian missile-carrying submarine destroyed and a heavy attack ship stranded in Sevastopol harbour.
What remained of the Black Sea Fleet began switching bases to the mainland port of Novorossisk, out of Storm Shadow’s range, in mid-October of that year.