A Ukrainian drone has taken down a Russian Su-30 fighter jet over the Black Sea for the first time, Kyiv intelligence officials said.
On Friday, the Ukrainian Magura drone successfully targeted and destroyed a Russian Su-30 near Novorossiysk port, an area where Ukraine asserts Russia keeps a Black Sea fleet. The jet’s crew is thought to have been saved after the incident.
“This marks the inaugural instance globally of a combat aircraft being taken down by a marine drone,” reported the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine on Saturday.
The agency further explained, “The Russian Su-30, a versatile fighter jet estimated to be worth $50 million, was consumed by flames while in mid-air before plummeting into the sea, where the might of Neptune took hold of it.”
Kyiv’s claims were echoed by Russian military bloggers, who have become a key source of information along the frontlines as independent news outlets are not entrenched in the combat zones.
“The Ukrainians brought more than three dozen drones… After jet was hit, the crew ended up in the water, surrounded by enemy drones,” a blogger with the handle Fighterbomber wrote on Telegram.
Another pro-Russian military blogger who goes by Rybar said a Russian jet was hit and that the pilots were “picked up by civilian sailors.”
The Kremlin has yet to comment on the incident.
Amid the strike, officials in Novorossiysk declared a state of emergency, claiming a Ukraine drone attack injured five people in the city and damaged a grain terminal in the busy trade port.
Kyiv touted the successful strike against the fighter jet, noting that it followed another first when its naval drones were used to take out two Russian helicopters on the last day of 2024.
Ukraine’s Magura V5 missile drone stands as the latest UAV innovation from Kyiv, a development that has allowed its forces to bombard Moscow’s war fleet along the Black Sea.
Last year, Ukrainian drones sank the Ivanovets guided-missile ship in the Black Sea after Russia’s withdrawal from a maritime truce.
Drones have also aided in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow’s latest bombardment injuring at least 11 people in Kyiv by striking residential buildings across the capital, officials said.
