This is the dramatic moment Ukraine destroys one of Russia’s most prized air defence systems as the two countries hunt down each other’s ground-based networks.
A Russian Tor air defense system at an undisclosed location somewhere along the Russian border was taken out by a Ukrainian attack drone, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Saturday.
Russian forces tried to shoot down the unmanned craft – a Polish-made Warmate kamikaze drone – but “missed”, Ukraine’s GUR wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The Russian Defense Ministry has been approached for comment.
The SA-15 Tor is a “critical” element of Russia’s air-defence capabilities in Ukraine.
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The MoD said the SA-15 has played a “critical and largely effective role” in Russian operations in Ukraine in its comments last month, adding the short-range weapon is protecting Moscow’s ground troops on the Ukrainian front line.
However, it noted that of the system’s key limitations is “likely the endurance of its crew” as only three people are assigned to each one, and keeping an SA-15 ready to engage for extended period is a challenge for its human operators.
According to US think tank The Center for Strategic and International Studies, the first Tor system debuted in 1986, with the upgraded Tor-M entered service five years later.
A later variant – the Tor-M2 – was adapted to help it target incoming threats, such as a swarm of drones.
The remote controlled vehicles are playing an increasingly pivotal role in the conflict, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has pledged to build at least a million more of them to bolster the country’s war effort.
