Attacks on Crimea have escalated during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started in February 2022, and the aftermath of a Ukrainian bombardment on the city of Dzhankoi in occupied Crimea has been shown in publicly available satellite photographs. An advanced Russian air defense system was allegedly destroyed in the strike.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that their troops successfully attacked three enemy S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems at Chornomorske and Yevpatoria, in addition to one Russian S-400 system near Dzhankoi.
Planet Labs, a California-based international imaging firm, is the source of the images. The Russian service of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Svoboda, obtained the tapes on Monday and released them on Telegram.
Radio Svoboda reports that the satellite photographs lack sufficient detail to determine which pieces of equipment were damaged. Nevertheless, the photos do show that last month, something was there and that fortifications were built close by. Russian air defense systems rely on radar, which the Ukrainian military said on Monday had taken heavy damage from the long-range attacks.
Anatoly Khrapchinskyi, a military analyst, claims that satellite photographs suggest the presence of the Russian Podlet radar system, which is used in the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems, at the site of the assault.
Ukraine maintains that Russian military outposts are legitimate targets in the current war and has struck them repeatedly.
The British Defense Ministry predicted on May 1 that these strikes would force Russia to move its air defense installations and disperse its fighter planes later.
War blogger Boris Rozhin of Russia, who is deployed in Crimea, said on his Telegram channel that Russian occupation bloggers take the danger to Russian air defense systems from partner troops, notably ATACMS ballistic missiles, extremely seriously. He stressed how critical it is to rethink the design of Russia’s air defense systems immediately.
