Ukraine destroyed another Russian S-300V system in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, along with its radar, in a drone strike on 3 September, media reports said. The attack marks another major blow against Russia’s air defenses in Ukraine’s occupied south.

Ukrainian drones strike in Polohy district

Militarnyi reports that the strike was carried out in the morning near the village of Oleksiivka in Polohy district by the Lasar’s Group unit of the National Guard. Video published by Telegram channel Butusov Plus shows drone operators identifying the Russian system before hitting it on a roadway. Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, also released images of the destroyed launcher.

Radar supporting Buk systems eliminated

The destroyed radar was the 9S36 station, which forms part of Russia’s modern middle-range Buk-M2 and Buk-M3 air defense systems. The station uses a mast that can extend to 22 meters, giving it the ability to detect low-flying targets even in forested or uneven terrain. It guides missiles through its antenna post, which can rise to 21 meters.

According to the manufacturer’s data, the radar can track and engage up to four air targets at once, adjusting for terrain obstacles up to 20 meters high.

Recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian air defenses

On 27 August, Ukraine struck a Russian S-300 division and aircraft at Baltimor airbase. That attack destroyed a 76N6 radar responsible for detecting targets at medium and high altitudes, as well as a 30N6 radar used for illumination and guidance.

Another S-300 system was destroyed earlier on 20 August by fighters of Lasar’s group on Russian-occupied territory in Zaporizhzhia oblast. Together with the latest strike, these operations highlight a sustained Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian air defense assets.

A Ukrainian Neptune cruise missile battery tried to strike targets in southern Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region on Thursday. The strike failed as Russian S-300 air-defense missiles rose to intercept the incoming Neptunes—and then the Russians struck back.

A surveillance drone spotted a truck-mounted Neptune launcher, apparently the same launcher that targeted Krasnodar Krai. An Iskander ballistic missile streaked down, damaging if not destroying the Ukrainian launcher.

The hit on the Neptune battery underscores the risk to Ukrainian forces as they induct new and harder-hitting drones and missiles and escalate their deep strike campaign bombarding Russian factories, air bases, oil refineries and other strategic targets.

Russian troops and key war-industry workers are in growing trouble as the Ukrainian munitions strike farther and harder. But the Ukrainian missile and drone crews aren’t immune to harm. Russia is responding to Ukraine’s deep strike campaign with a counter deep strike campaign.

It’s unclear what the Ukrainian Neptune battery was trying to hit in Krasnodar Krai. There’s no shortage of targets, including air bases, air-defense sites and others. In any event, Russian surface-to-air missile batteries were ready, for once.

While the Russians “can’t defend everywhere,” according to retired US Army general Mark Hertling, they managed to defend Krasnodar Krai on Thursday. Four S-300 long-range SAMs spiraled into the air, swatting down the salvo of Neptunes.

It’s hard to say whether the Neptunes in the attempted raid were the standard 300-km version of the made-in-Ukraine missile or the new 1,000-km “long” version. The Ukrainian navy used standard Neptunes, which are capable of anti-ship and land-attack strikes, to sink the Russian navy cruiser Moskva in April 2022.

Since then, Ukraine has expanded its deployment of the subsonic missile, which packs a 150-kg warhead and may feature satellite and inertial navigation and a radar or infrared seeker. And it has added an even more powerful missile: the Flamingo, which ranges a staggering 3,000 km with a massive 1,000-kg warhead. Its guidance and seeker may be similar to the Long Neptune’s.

Ukraine strikes back

With scores of cruise missiles and thousands of one-way attack drones a month, “Ukraine is increasingly taking the war to Russia now,” American-Ukrainian war correspondent David Kirichenko wrote in a new essay for The Atlantic Council. Drone and missile attacks on Russian oil refineries in recent weeks have throttled Russia’s refining by as much as 14%.

Russia is also waging a deep strike campaign, of course—and with more drones and missiles. But Russia’s drone and missile attacks mostly targets Ukrainian cities in a country of just 233,000 square miles. Ukraine’s drones and missiles target military and industrial targets in a country of 6.6 million square miles.

Between them, the Long Neptune, the Flamingo and Ukraine’s best attack drones should be able to hold at risk roughly half that area.

Ukraine’s air defense problem is hard but simple. Ukrainian defenses must contend with nearly daily raids involving potentially hundreds of drones and missiles, but they can concentrate around the biggest cities that are the Russians’ main targets.

By contrast, Russia’s air defense problem is hard and complex. “The Kremlin simply does not have enough air defense systems to protect thousands of potential military and energy targets spread across 11 time zones,” Kirichenko wrote. In that context, the successful interception of the Neptunes streaking toward Krasnodar Krai may have been an outlier.

And it makes sense for the Russians to target Ukraine’s best cruise missiles “left of the boom.” to borrow a US Army term. It’s better to blast a missile launcher, and kill or injure its crew, than to risk missing a missile after it launches.

Ukrainian missileers should know they’re being hunted. Every time they roll out for a launch, Russian drones will be looking for them—and Russian ballistic missiles will be ready to take aim.

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