Ukraine says it took out prized Russian S-400 launchers with a strike on a base in Crimea

• Ukraine said its forces took out multiple S-400 launchers during an attack on a Russian base.

• The strikes on the Dzhankoi base in Crimea this week destroyed or damaged four launchers, Kyiv said.

• The S-400 is a prized Russian air-defense system, and relatively few have been lost during the war.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency says Kyiv took out several of Russia's prized S-400 air-defense launchers during an attack on an airbase in the occupied Crimean peninsula this week.

The strikes, which occurred overnight on Tuesday, targeted the Dzhankoi military base in northern Crimea, and destroyed or critically damaged four S-400 launchers, three radar stations, air-defense equipment, and airspace surveillance equipment, the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence said on Thursday.

"The number of damaged or destroyed enemy aviation facilities and the number of casualties among the personnel of the Russian army of occupation is being clarified," the HUR, an arm of the country's defense ministry, wrote in a statement shared to the Telegram messaging app.

Footage of the attack shared on Thursday by Ukraine's defense ministry purported to show several munitions being launched into the sky and then a series of massive explosions at the base.

It's unclear what type of ordnance Kyiv's forces used for the strikes, and Business Insider was unable to immediately verify the footage.

Explosions were initially reported around the base early Wednesday morning, and then footage of the Ukrainian attack began to circulate on social media.

Later, the pro-Ukraine Atesh partisan movement reported the "defeat" of an "S-400 complex." A launcher had exploded and there was serious damage to the remaining vehicles of the system, Atesh said, citing agents that the group said it had within the Russian military.

"The occupiers believed in their newest air-defense system so much that they placed warehouses with missiles directly next to the launcher," Atesh claimed in a Telegram statement.

Russia's formidable S-400 Triumf is a mobile, surface-to-air missile system that's capable of engaging targets — such as aircraft, drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles — at long ranges and high altitudes. The S-400 is the successor system to the S-200 and S-300 and is considered to be a Russian equivalent of the US-made MIM-104 Patriot battery.

The advanced S-400, which has been highly praised by Moscow, has played a role in denying Ukrainian aircraft the ability to operate close to the front lines. S-400 losses throughout the war have been relatively rare, although Kyiv has managed to destroy several systems, including a few as a result of attacks last fall.

Russia also had several different types of helicopters — including the Mi-8, Mi-25M, Mi-28, and Ka-52 — deployed to the Dzhankoi base, according to the Institute for the Study of War think tank. The conflict analysts wrote that it is unclear if any of the aircraft suffered damage in the strike.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy celebrated the attack on Wednesday evening and thanked both the Ukrainian forces and Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Kyiv's military, for organizing the operation. "The occupier must lose, and each of their losses is Ukraine's strength," he said in an address to the nation.

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