Drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) destroyed a Russian Nebo-SVU long-range radar system in Crimea overnight on May 30, a source in Ukrainian intelligence services told the Kyiv Independent on May 31.
The system, worth around $100 million, was positioned near Armiansk, a town in the north of the occupied Crimean peninsula, the source said.
According to the source, the radar was monitoring a 380-kilometer-long (around 235 miles) sector of the front and helped to protect Russian military facilities in Crimea.
After the attack, satellite intelligence recorded that the radar was shut down and has not been brought back online since then, the source said.
"This operation 'blinded' Russian air defenses on a large segment of the front," the source said.
The reported attack came a day before Ukrainian forces carried out a missile strike on a ferry crossing and an oil depot at Port Kavkaz in Russia's Krasnodar Krai, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.
The recent attacks were the result of a "several-days-long operation aimed at destroying the logistics crucial for Russian forces in Crimea," sources in the SBU told the Kyiv Independent.
The previous week, a Ukrainian drone struck an early-warning Voronezh M radar in the Russian city of Orsk, in Orenburg Oblast, a source from Ukraine's military intelligence agency told the Kyiv Independent.
The Washington Post then reported some days later, citing an unnamed U.S. official, that the U.S. was concerned about Ukraine striking radar stations on Russian territory as it could "dangerously unsettle Moscow."
Martin Fornusek
(Updated: )
