Combat footage shows Ukrainian forces destroying an important Russian weapon

Ukrainian forces fighting in the Kherson region destroyed a Russian Pantsir-S1 missile system with a US-supplied M142 High Mobility Rocket System (Himars). Video footage from the attack was published on Telegram by the Press Service of the Ukrainian Navy. 

Soldiers from the 120th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion located and then destroyed a Russian Pantsir-S1 while searching for enemy equipment according to a report by the Ukrainian military news website Militarnyi. 

“Thanks to the use of a drone with a built-in thermal imager, it was possible to detect a Russian Pantsir-S1 at a combat position,” Militarnyi noted. “Once the system’s location was identified, the coordinates were relayed to Ukrainian artillery.”

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukrainian_navy

The first missile strike on the Pantsir-S1’s location reportedly missed but did significant damage to the system. Russian soldiers tried to relocate the Pantsir-S1 but it was hit by a second missile strike Chaplynka in the Kherson region. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukrainian_navy

“After repositioning near a public road, the Pantsir-S1 was struck again by Ukrainian artillery,” Militarnyi reported. “While the second shot wasn’t a direct hit, it caused debris to initiate the detonation of the system’s 57E6E missiles.”

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukrainian_navy

According to the open-source Dutch intelligence group Oryx, which has been counting and verifying losses for both sides since the conflict began, Russia has at 26 Pantsir-S1 systems since Vladimir Putin ordered his invasion of Ukraine. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @ukrainian_navy

In January 2024, Ukrainian drone reconnaissance identified two Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems and targeted them for destruction in what Newsweek reported was part of Ukraine's push to take out important Russian ground assets. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin

However, the destruction of the two Pantsir-S1 systems was unlike other strikes by Ukraine at the time since it occurred within Russian territory. Both systems were taken out by military intelligence operating in Russia’s Belgorod region. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By WhiteBlackTime, Own Work, CC BY-SA 4.0

“As part of a complex mission executed with the assistance of the United24 platform, military intelligence operators struck the positions of the Russian air defense forces in the territory of Belgorod region,” Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence reported. 

“As a result of the fire damage inflicted, two Russian air defense systems Pantsir-S1 were neutralized," the report continued according to a translation from Ukrainiform, a Ukrainian state-run news outlet

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0

A video of the incidents was published online by Ukraine's Main Directorate of Military Intelligence, and in it, the Pantsir-S1 systems can be seen from the view of kamikaze drones that identified and then targeted the systems for destruction. 

Photo Credit: YouTube @DI_Ukraine

However, it is not clear from the video whether the Pantsir-S1 system had been damaged. It is difficult to say at the time if the two Russian air defense systems were destroyed in the attack, which reports said took place on January 6th.

Photo Credit: YouTube @DI_Ukraine

If the report were accurate, it would have meant Ukraine was able to destroy about $15 million dollars worth of equipment designed to target aircraft and cruise missiles as well as precision-guided munition, according to Newsweek. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0

Newsweek also reported that the exiled Ukrainian mayor of the city of Mariupol said that the Russian air defenses, which had been placed so close to the country, “turned out to be leaky” in a reference to their perceived effectiveness. 

The Pantsir-21 missile system began its development in 1989 and was meant to replace the Soviet Union’s older 2K22 Tunguska air defense system according to Missile Threat, a CSIS Missile Defense Project analysis and defense project. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons  By Leonid Dzhepko / Л.П. Джепко, Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Codenamed the SA-022 Greyhound by NATO officials, the Pantsir-21 is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun that has proven to be very capable on the battlefield due to the system's solid-state radar and its missile and cannon armaments. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0

The Pantsir-21 is usually equipped with 12 57E6 missiles as well as two 30mm 2A38M cannons that Missile Threat reported allows the air defense system to engage multiple targets at once at distances between 1 and 12 miles depending on the target.  

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0

Newsweek’s Ellie Cook reported that Ukraine had been “hunting Russia's network of air defenses such as the short-range Pantsir” at the time in an effort to counter the Kremlin’s targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0

In November 2023, Ukraine destroyed another Pantsir-S1 system according to a report from Ukraine’s Southern Defense Force. Video of that incident was also provided by the task force and the Pantsir-S1 system was clearly destroyed. 

Photo Credit: Telegram @SJTF_Odes