Ukrainian drones neutralize four S-400 launchers and weaken Russian air defense power.

Ukraine’s security services say drones and missiles destroyed four S-400 launchers and two critical radars at Russia’s Novorossiysk air defense hub. The strike creates a notable gap in Russia’s Black Sea shield and disrupts protection over a vital oil export route.

According to information published by RBC-Ukraine, on November 15, 2025, sources in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported that drones from the Alpha Special Operations Center destroyed four S-400 Triumf launchers and two key radars at the Kuban Red Banner regiment base near Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Kyiv Post subsequently described the operation as blowing a “hole in Russian defenses,” noting that it was conducted in coordination with Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (HUR) and Special Operations Forces. Satellite images reviewed by Ukrainian and independent analysts confirm the destruction of four launchers and the radar positions within the perimeter of military unit 1537.
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Ukrainian SBU long-range drones destroyed four S-400 launchers and two key radars during a precision strike on the Novorossiysk air defense site, crippling Russia's premier Black Sea air shield and exposing a major gap in the layered air defenses protecting its main oil export hub (Picture source: social media/ Vitaly Kuzmin).

Ukrainian intelligence displayed that around twelve S-400 launchers were deployed at the site, meaning at least a third of the fire units are confirmed destroyed and others likely damaged by blast and secondary detonations. The strike also removed two critical sensors from the battery: the 96N6 “Cheese Board” early warning radar and the 92N6 “Grave Stone” engagement radar, both visually confirmed in post-strike imagery. The 96N6 provides three-dimensional surveillance and is designed to pick up low-flying targets over sea and clutter, while the 92N6 tracks targets and guides S-400 missiles in flight. Ukrainian outlets underline that the 92N6 is regarded as the most valuable single component of the system, since without it, launchers on their own are essentially blind.

A typical S-400 battalion combines a 55K6E command post, a 91N6E long-range acquisition radar, one or more 96L6/96N6 surveillance radars, several 92N6 engagement radars and between eight and twelve 5P85-series launchers. A full system is advertised to detect air targets at up to roughly 600 kilometers and engage aerodynamic threats at ranges approaching 400 kilometers, while tracking dozens of targets and guiding scores of missiles simultaneously. Each launcher usually carries four ready-to-fire canisters loaded with long-range 40N6 or 48N6DM missiles and medium-range 9M96 interceptors. By destroying four launchers, Ukraine has removed up to 16 ready missiles from the local air picture, but the more serious damage lies in the loss of the 96N6 and 92N6, which are far fewer in number than launch vehicles and take longer to rebuild or redeploy.

The location makes this loss far more than a tactical embarrassment. Novorossiysk is now the primary Black Sea hub for Russia’s crude exports and a fallback base for elements of the Black Sea Fleet relocated from Crimea earlier in the war. The same strike package forced a temporary halt to oil exports through Novorossiysk and the nearby Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal, interrupting flows of roughly 2.2 million barrels per day, about 2 percent of global supply, before loadings resumed. For that reason, Moscow had built a layered air defense cocoon around the port, combining S-400 and S-300 systems with shorter-range Pantsir and Tor units. With one of the key S-400 nodes now neutralized, there is a measurable gap in the integrated air defense system over Russia’s main Black Sea export route.

Public details of the strike profile remain limited, but Ukrainian General Staff statements, independent analysis and Ukrainian reporting indicate that the attack combined domestically produced long-range one-way attack drones with R-360 Neptune cruise missiles, launched in waves from Ukrainian territory. Long-range drones flying at low altitude over the Black Sea can exploit the radar horizon and terrain masking, forcing S-400 crews either to fire expensive long-range missiles at relatively cheap targets or to hold fire and rely on short-range systems. By approaching from multiple axes and mixing heavy warhead drones with decoy platforms, Ukrainian planners likely saturated both the surveillance picture and the local short-range defenses. Once the 96N6 and 92N6 lit up to search and engage, they became aim points for follow-on drones and Neptunes cued by pre-strike satellite and OSINT targeting, a playbook that Ukrainian officers and Western analysts say has been at the heart of their evolving suppression of enemy air defenses campaign.

The Novorossiysk operation sits within a broader pattern of hunting S-400s that began with earlier strikes on Crimea. Ukrainian media have previously documented successful Ukrainian attacks on S-400 sites near Yevpatoria and Cape Tarkhankut, where radars and launchers were destroyed in 2023 and 2024 using combinations of drones, cruise missiles and special operations forces. In response, Western intelligence assessments noted that Russia has been forced to pull S-400 batteries away from strategically sensitive regions like Kaliningrad to backfill losses in Ukraine, accepting thinner coverage along NATO’s northeastern flank to protect occupied territories and key logistics hubs. The degradation of a high-end battery at Novorossiysk deepens that structural dilemma, compelling Moscow to choose between shielding its remaining bomber and naval infrastructure or sustaining air defense density around other national centers.

For Kyiv, the operation also showcases how the SBU has transformed from a largely internal security and counterintelligence service into a strategic strike arm that complements HUR’s more traditional military intelligence and UAV operations. HUR has often been associated with attacks on airfields and logistical nodes, while the SBU’s Alpha units and dedicated drone directorates now specialize in complex long-range raids that rely on clandestine networks, high-quality targeting and bespoke unmanned systems. That evolution was already evident in Operation Spider’s Web on June 1, 2025, when the SBU concealed explosive-laden drones inside the roofs of wooden sheds transported by unsuspecting truck drivers to the perimeters of multiple Russian air bases.

Independent reporting and commercial satellite imagery showed that the Spider’s Web attack involved 117 drones and hit at least four strategic bomber bases, damaging or destroying 41 aircraft and temporarily removing roughly a third of Russia’s cruise missile carrier fleet at an estimated cost to Russia of around 7 billion dollars. The same SBU, using many of the same planners and methods, is now repeatedly striking Russia’s energy infrastructure, with reporting tracking drone and missile attacks on refineries, oil depots and pipelines across southern and central Russia, from Tuapse and Novorossiysk to Ryazan, Saratov and Volgograd. In that context, Novorossiysk looks less like a one-off spectacular and more like a mature doctrine: knock out the protecting S-400 radars, open a corridor for follow-on waves of unmanned systems, then hit the economic targets that finance Russia’s war.

For Russia, the loss of four launchers and, more importantly, two scarce S-400 radars at a key export hub both expose finite high-end air defense stocks and underscore the vulnerability of fixed, heavily advertised systems to cheap, networked drones. For Ukraine, each destroyed 92N6 or 96N6 is not just a symbolic kill but a concrete reduction in Russia’s ability to contest the airspace over the Black Sea with modern sensors and interceptors. For NATO planners and defense industries, the lesson is blunt: future integrated air and missile defense architectures will have to be more mobile, more distributed and far more focused on counter unmanned systems if they are to survive against an adversary willing to trade low-cost drones for billion-dollar assets.