Ukraine Celebrates Failure Of Russian Air Defenses In Crimea ATACMS Strike

Ukraine celebrated the failure of Russian air defenses in annexed Crimea after powerful explosions rocked the Saky air base.

Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted annexed Crimea with four U.S.-supplied ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) strikes, wounding two Russian servicemen, reported the Astra Telegram channel, a project run by independent Russian journalists, citing sources in local emergency services.

An ammunition depot was struck at the air base in the western town of Novofedorivka, while a radar station was hit at a Russian air defense deployment site located 3 miles from the village of Shelkovichnoye in the Saky district, it said.

Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday, saying that Kyiv's forces "continue to destroy the military infrastructure of the Russian invaders."

"Tonight, units of the missile forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in cooperation with other components of the Defense Forces, as part of a unified plan, struck the Saky airfield in the temporarily occupied Crimea," Ukraine's General Staff said in a statement on its social media channels.

"This is one of the operational airfields that Russia uses to control airspace, in particular over the Black Sea area, and to launch air strikes on Ukrainian territory," it said, noting that Kyiv is clarifying the results of the attacks.

"It is important to note that [it] was covered by 'modern' Russian air defense equipment, which once again failed to protect an important Russian military facility," Ukraine's General Staff said.

"The joint combat work of all components of the Defense Forces on important targets of the Russian Armed Forces will continue," it added.

Russia hasn't commented on the attack. Newsweek couldn't independently verify the use of ATACMS and contacted the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukraine's Foreign Ministry for comment via email.

Attacks on Crimea have ramped up throughout Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, as Kyiv looks to reclaim the Black Sea peninsula. The region was annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Russian pro-war military bloggers have recently voiced concerns about the country's ability to protect its prized assets.

In June, Boris Rozhin, a Crimea-based Russian war blogger, urged Putin to address his country's air defenses after a reported Ukrainian strike on the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, destroyed parts of a Russian S-300/400 air defense system.

A revision of the "architecture" of Russia's air defense systems is "urgently needed," he wrote on Telegram.

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