09/17/2023 

Until recently, the Russian S-400 Triumph air defense systems were considered the most powerful in the world. However, recent events have shown that this is not at all the case. Near Yevpatoria, the Ukrainian Defense Forces successfully destroyed such an installation , and a little earlier caused damage to another installed at Cape Tarkhankut. During this operation, Ukraine actually showed an unprecedented result and an example that the world had not yet known.

Because of this, the occupying country, Russia, is suffering colossal material and image losses. Thus, one S-400 complex costs $1.2 billion. China and India are buying them from the Russian Federation, and recent events are making them worry – was it worth spending so much money on air defense systems that can be so easily destroyed? Armed Forces reserve officer, military expert Andrey Kramarov spoke about this in an exclusive interview with OBOZREVATEL .

– On September 14, near Yevpatoria in the temporarily occupied Crimea, the Russian S-400 Triumph air defense system was destroyed. Previously, a successful strike on the S-400 was carried out in the area of ​​Cape Tarkhankut. How do you evaluate these actions?

– The question here is about the scale of destruction. A radar radio station was destroyed at Cape Tarkhankut. According to various sources, from two to four launchers were destroyed. A division of the S-400 complex worth $1.2 billion, observation stations, and transport-loading vehicles were actually fully deployed here.

It was an anti-aircraft missile division guarding a very important facility of strategic importance located in Yevpatoria – an ammunition depot. In particular, it stores missiles of various types, including S-300 and S-400 missiles. Consequently, he was hit.

The blow was combined. Initially, surveillance equipment was destroyed by unmanned aerial vehicles. This is quite possible, because an unobtrusive UAV can easily cause significant damage to a radar station. In general, this design is quite sensitive, quite gentle. Consequently, it was damaged, after which the complex itself was “blinded” and struck.

Many explosions have been reported. Most likely, the ammunition detonated. Moreover, there were, in particular, S-300 launchers, which can also be controlled by a command post from the S-400 division. That is, they can be combined into one system.

Such a defeat is virtually unprecedented. Because in the second phase of the operation a strike was carried out using a Ukrainian cruise missile. Most likely, this is a modernized Neptune. Accordingly, a cruise missile is a reference target for such complexes.

The S-400 has problems detecting and destroying our missiles. Perhaps the successful combination of drones and cruise missiles played a role. This is a huge loss for the occupying country – both material, 1.2 billion dollars, and a colossal reputational risk. After all, as I know, this fact greatly worried China and India, who purchased these S-400 systems from Russia.

– Indeed, even before the large-scale invasion, “Triumphs” frightened children. It was believed that this was an ultra-modern, ultra-powerful weapon of Russia. It turned out that this was not the case. But how many such complexes does the enemy have in general? Can we say that the capabilities of the Ukrainian army have increased so much that theoretically the entire stock of Triumphs could be destroyed?

– We cannot destroy the entire stockpile, because many of them are still used in the depths of Russia to cover certain strategic objects. But regarding those located in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, we show quite good potential for their destruction. First of all, in the temporarily occupied Crimea, where we are thinning out the enemy’s air defense system from the western part of the peninsula. This is absolutely logical, because there are suspicions that in this way we are breaking through a corridor through the enemy’s air defense shield for our other types of weapons.

It’s difficult to say how many launchers there are in total. One complex with a command post and a radar station can come with 4-12 launchers. It was reported that since the S-400 was adopted by the Russian army, more than 480 launchers have been produced and delivered.

So there are a lot of launchers, but with such massive losses, the enemy will experience a shortage of them on the territory of Ukraine. Russia has a very vast territory. They can’t just take everything off and throw it here. Their entire territory is not very well covered, to put it mildly.

There are questions about the effectiveness of the S-400 against a cruise missile that can fly quite low and attack, for example, from the sea. “Triumph” did not show itself to be very effective here. Thus, in 2017, Tomahawk missiles attacked a Russian military airfield in Syria. They allegedly worked there in combination with the S-400 Pantsir C1 complex. At the same time, they missed 18 out of 18 missiles.

– Question about the Black Sea Fleet. On September 14, the occupation authorities announced another attack on the Black Sea Fleet from Ukraine using surface drones. This is not the first and, we hope, not the last such attack. How can you estimate the losses of the occupying fleet recently? We are talking about boats, the patrol ship “Sergei Kotov”. Can we hope that our success in destroying the Black Sea Fleet will be even greater?

“I think our success now depends only on how much we can scale our production of maritime drones. It is clear that they are available in different modifications. Depending on the range, they can carry a warhead from 100 to 450 kilograms. This is a very effective weapon. As far as is known, they use the FAB-100 or FAB-250 aerial bomb as the basis of the warhead.

If such a warhead with a naval drone flies into the side of the hull of any ship, it will usually suffer critical losses.

According to the Department of Strategic Communications of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, on September 14, damage was caused to two of Russia’s newest ships, the so-called patrol ships. These ships were included in the project in 2016 and were put into operation in 2019–2021. The first three ships were launched. The fourth was to be launched in 2022, making a total of six for the entire fleet.

We can say that this is partly a unique ship, because despite the fact that we are talking about a light patrol ship, it is equipped with a Tor-M2KM anti-aircraft gun, a special modification of the anti-aircraft gun to cover ships from various types of drones, including reconnaissance or attack ones.

As reported, the possibility of installing even Caliber launchers for 2 or 4 missiles on these ships was theoretically considered. But for now it is considered as a potential technology.

So I think this is a more than good result. In fact, Ukraine is the first state in history that, without having a single torpedo bomber, was able to hit a submarine (Rostov-on-Don in Sevastopol – Ed.), albeit in dry dock. Plus, the second large landing ship (“Minsk” – Ed.) was also sunk in a dry dock. It can be seen that the entire superstructure located above the deck was simply demolished to smithereens.

“Minsk” is already the second after “Olenegorsky Gornyak”. The Russians used them for logistics, to communicate Novorossiysk with ports, in particular with the port in Kerch. They even tried to go to the port of Mariupol. They delivered military supplies. This is also a significant loss for the enemy. Moreover, they are now unable to conduct other landing warships through the Bosporus Strait.

Moreover, the ships of the Minsk project are ships that were laid down at the shipyard in Gdansk back in 1983 under the Soviet Union. Now Russia cannot build such ships. Therefore, this is an irreversible loss. And the submarine that carries Kalibr is also a very significant loss. In general, the prospects for Russians to restore such large, expensive projects can be assessed critically.

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