Ukraine WIPES OUT Putin’s “Unstoppable” Weapons…Russia Loses Everything

It’s another day, and another massive Ukrainian
airstrike against Russia that has cost Vladimir Putin hundreds of millions of dollars in vital
military assets.

Crimea was once again the target of Ukraine’s long-range weapons, as the peninsula
was lit up overnight in an attack that destroyed radars, fighter jets, and more.

Russia still seems
to believe that its military hardware is safe in Crimea.

Time and time again, Ukraine proves that
concept wrong.

Ukraine has just wiped out some of Putin’s “unstoppable weapons,” meaning Russia has
just lost everything at a time when it’s trying to project as much strength as possible.

On December
18, Ukraine carried out a massive overnight strike against the Belbek Airfield, which is located in
the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

NewsSky was among several outlets to report on the latest Ukrainian
deep strike, noting that long-range drones controlled by Alpha Special Operations Centre
of the Security Service of Ukraine’s, or SBU’s, were responsible for most of the damage caused.

Ukraine targeted several types of Russian aerial assets during the attack, including a MiG-31
fighter jet, which is the jewel in the crown in the list of destroyed Russian equipment, several
radar systems, and a Russian air defense unit.

But this wasn’t just about taking out Russia’s
eyes and aerial weapons.

Ukraine once again inflicted some severe financial damage on Russia,
with its overnight attack resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars that the Kremlin has invested
into Crimea’s defenses going up in flames.

Though it’s often reticent about the nature and scale
of its airstrikes, the SBU seems to be proud enough of what it achieved during the early
hours of December 18 to want to talk about it.

In a Telegram post, the organization shared still
photographs of the strike that appear to have been taken by Ukraine’s drones, along with a rundown
of what it achieved in Crimea.

“This night, long-range drones of the SBU’s Alpha Special
Operations Center successfully practiced on Russian air defense components at the Belbek
military airfield in temporarily occupied Crimea,” the SBU announced before sharing a
list of the targets that its drones destroyed.

The previously mentioned MiG-31 was among them,
which the SBU says was worth up to $50 million and was fully loaded with weapons, likely in
anticipation of conducting a strike against Ukraine in the coming hours.

SBU drones also took
out a pair of Nebo-SVU radar detection systems, which are each worth about $60-100 million.

A
Pantsir-S2 air defense system also went up in flames, as did the $12 million that Russia would
have spent to build it.

And finally, Ukraine destroyed a 92N6 radar, which is used by Russia’s
S-400 air defense system, to take out another $30 million of Russian hardware.

The total cost of
the night for Russia: About $200 million.

“The SBU continues effective work to destroy air defense
systems in Crimea, which cover important military and logistical facilities of the occupiers,” the
SBU declared, before concluding, “The elimination of the components of this echeloned system
significantly weakens the enemy’s defense and military capabilities in the Crimean direction.

”
So, Russia lost a lot of money during the early hours of December 18.

However, it’s the loss of
hardware upon which Putin was relying to defend Crimea, and launch attacks against Ukraine, that
will sting Russia the most.

We’ve already shared what Russia lost.

However, to truly understand the
damage that Ukraine just did, we need to know why these various systems are so important to Russia.

Let’s start with the headline strike of the night: The destruction of a MiG-31.

In its report on
Ukraine’s strike, Militarnyi focused on the MiG-31, pointing out that the fighter jet has
been designed to intercept and destroy aerial targets at both medium and high altitudes.

This
suggests that the jet was stationed at Belbek, ready to take to the skies to destroy the very
types of weapons that just scored direct hits against it.

The War Zone, or TWZ, also reported
on the destruction of Russia’s fighter jet, though it casts a little shade on the SBU’s claims
that the MiG-31 was carrying a full combat load at the time that it was hit.

“Ukraine claims that the
targeted MiG-31 was carrying a full combat load, although the available video reveals that it
carries no armament under its wings,” TWZ reports.

“Potentially, it carries air-to-air missiles
below the fuselage, but the forward-mounted examples are also not visible.

” The outlet also
says that the possibility of these aircraft being a decoy can’t be ruled out, though it notes that a
legitimate MiG-31 has been seen at the Belbek base sporadically over the last few weeks.

Assuming
the jet was the real deal, it will be the second MiG-31 that Russia has lost at Belbek, as well as
only the second confirmed combat loss of a MiG-31 from the stockpile of about 130 that TWZ says
Russia has at its disposal.

Army Technology offers some more details, particularly about the types of
weapons that Ukraine’s drones may have destroyed, if the SBU’s claim of the MiG-31 being fully
armed is accurate.

It says that Russia’s jet can be loaded with a variety of air-to-air
missiles, including the long-range Vympel R-33E, which uses inertial navigation to strike targets
at extreme range.

That missile is designed to take out massive targets, such as bombers and even the
B-52 Stratofortress.

Russia may have hoped to keep its MiG-31 in Crimea in case Ukraine ever decided
to launch a direct aerial assault using some of its fighter jets or bombers.

In the meantime,
Russia may have been using the jet’s short-range R-60MK missiles and medium-range Bisnovat R-40TD1
missiles to take out incoming Ukrainian drones and missiles.

The MiG-31 also has a six-barrel
30-millimeter cannon that is stocked with 800 rounds and can fire at a rate of over 10,000
rounds per minute.

It’s unclear which, if any, of these weapons were loaded into the MiG-31
that the SBU says it just destroyed.

Taking out any would be a good result for Ukraine.

Though the
MiG-31 may be among the most impactful air defense assets that Russia had stationed at its Belbek
base, even the most powerful defensive weapons become less viable when there are no radars around
to help them locate targets.

Russia needs its eyes scanning the skies to anticipate Ukraine’s drones
and missiles, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Ukraine purposefully targeted some Russian radar
systems during its December 18 attack against the Belbek base.

That brings us to the Nebo-SVU.

Two of them, in fact, have been devastated by the SBU’s drones.

NewsSky calls these radar complexes
the eyes of the Russian air defense in Crimea, as they’re responsible for coordinating the
actions of many of the air defense systems and fighter jets in the Belbek base.

ODIN explains
why, pointing out that the Nebo-SVU is part of the NEBO family of Very High Frequency radars that
are capable of providing 2D and 3D data covering what’s going on in the skies within their area
of operation.

The system entered service in 2004, and it has a host of intelligent systems that,
among other things, allow it to identify friends from foes and suppress active jammers that would
otherwise hinder its work.

ODIN says that the system can detect targets at a distance of up
to 350 kilometers, or around 217 miles.

Plus, a single Nebo-SVU can track up to 100 targets
simultaneously, which should make it the perfect choice for helping Russia’s air defense systems
deal with Ukraine’s drone hordes and missiles.

The Nebo-SVU is supposed to set them up so Russia’s
fighter jets and air defense systems can knock them down.

Instead, two of these radar complexes
appear to have utterly failed to detect Ukraine’s drones, leading to them being taken out of the
equation.

It’s unknown how many more, if any, of these systems the Belbek base has.

If these
were the only two, then Ukraine may have just rendered the base’s fighter jets and air defense
systems utterly useless.

Speaking of radars, it wasn’t just Nebo-SVUs that Ukraine destroyed
on December 18.

Its drones also targeted a 92N6E radar, which, as we already mentioned, is a key
element of the S-400 air defense system.

The loss of this radar could be a major blow for Russia
because losing it may mean that the entire S-400 battery station ed at Belbek is unable to fire,
at least with any sort of precision, until it is replaced.

That means another major cost has to be
absorbed by Russia.

NewsSky says that the cost of losing the utility of this S-400 battery could be
as high as $500 million, meaning Russia basically has a bunch of expensive military hardware
sitting around and doing nothing due to a single 92N6E radar being taken out of commission.

Army
Recognition describes what this radar does, noting that it has the NATO codename Grave Stone and that
it is an extremely advanced mobile radar system.

Like the Nebo-SVU, the 92N6E radar is capable of
tracking up to 100 targets at once, and it can do so while providing full 360-degree coverage from
wherever it is placed.

Drones shouldn’t be able to escape its notice, either, as the radar was
designed to track everything from low-altitude aircraft to ballistic missiles.

Specifically, the
radar should be capable of tracking targets flying as low as 20 meters, or about 65.

6 feet, off the
ground, and those targets should show up once they come within 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, of
the radar.

If all of this is accurate, Ukraine’s drones shouldn’t have stood a chance.

But none
of this was enough for the radar system to alert its networked S-400s of the incoming Ukrainian
drones before those drones took it offline for good.

Finally, there’s the Pantsir S-2 air defense
system that the SBU claims to have destroyed.

A short-range system, the Pantsir S-2 is capable of
hitting targets within a range of 30 kilometers, or about 18.

6 miles, thanks to new surface-to-air
missiles that are upgraded from those loaded into the Pantsir S-1.

The system also comes equipped
with its own radar, which has a detection range of about 10 kilometers, or 6.

2 miles, more than the
Pantsir’s missile range.

The idea here is that the radar tracks and the missiles destroy, with enough
of a range difference between the two to allow time for the Pantsir to send its weaponry hurtling
into the skies.

If those 12 57E6-E missiles fail, the Pantsir-S2 also comes with a pair of 2A38M
30-millimeter anti-aircraft guns that have a combined fire rate of up to 5,000 rounds per
minute.

Those guns can shoot rounds in bursts of up to 250 at a time, and they’re meant to be
the quick-firing backup for when the air defense system’s missiles fail to hit their mark.

To
sum up, all four of the pieces of equipment that Ukraine destroyed on December 18 combine to
form the bulk of the Belbek base’s air defenses.

A fully-loaded fighter jet has been downed,
according to the SBU.

Several radar systems that serve as the eyes in the skies for Russia’s jets
and anti-air systems have been reduced to rubble, as has one of those systems itself.

But that’s not
all that is important about the SBU’s strike.

Just hitting Belbek at all is a big deal for Ukraine.

TWZ explains why, stating, “The significance of the airbase, in particular, lies in the fact that
its aircraft and air defenses help extend coverage deeper into Ukraine, as well as providing critical
screening for the nearby Russian naval base at Sevastopol, and also extend this coverage far out
into the Black Sea.

” NewsSky adds that Belbek is Russia’s main military airfield in Crimea, and it
serves more than just a defensive purpose.

It’s home to Su-30s, MiG-31s, and helicopters, all of
which Russia uses to launch airstrikes on mainland Ukraine, as well as coordinate its own aerial
assaults over the Black Sea.

That adds another layer to the SBU strike.

By taking out radars
and other air defense assets at Belbek, Ukraine opens up more opportunities for its drones in the
future.

Belbek itself becomes more vulnerable, meaning we may soon find ourselves reporting
on other jets and air defense systems being destroyed.

Losing radar coverage in the Black
Sea means Russia also has to deal with a greater chance of undetected threats targeting ships from
the Black Sea Fleet.

And if not ships, Ukraine can use these gaps in Belbek radar coverage to send
more drones into other regions of Crimea that relied upon Belbek as their first line of defense.

Plus, anything that Ukraine can do to limit Russia’s ability to launch airstrikes against its
territory is a good thing.

As the U.

K.

’s House of Lords Library reports, the period between October
5 and October 12 alone saw Russia fire 92 missiles and nearly 1,400 glide bombs at Ukraine.

Gwara
Media adds that 44,000 Russian glide bombs pelted Ukraine during the first 11 months of 2025, which
amounts to about 130 per day.

Of course, only a small number of these projectiles would have come
from Belbek.

But if the SBU’s strike means that even a few dozen missiles and glide bombs intended
for Ukraine can no longer be fired, that relieves pressure on the country’s embattled civilians.

As
for the impact of the strike on Russia’s defenses, one big attack may have opened the door for many
more to come.

So, it’s worth exploring what little we know about how the SBU pulled this strike off.

The SBU itself hasn’t explained precisely what it did, preferring instead to detail the damage in
the Telegram post we mentioned earlier.

However, NewsSky has offered a general timeline of the
events that shook the Belbek base to its core, which gives us an idea of the strategy that
the SBU followed to make this attack possible.

The outlet says that the SBU timed its operation
so that it would occur during the dead of night, when Russia’s air defense crews were less likely
to expect an attack.

Under the cover of darkness, the SBU’s drones flew several hundred kilometers
to arrive at Belbek, bypassing nighttime patrols in the process.

Ukraine also made sure to
strike its targets in a specific order.

The Nebo-SVU radars were the first to go down, which
makes a lot of sense given their long detection ranges.

Those radars may well have seen the SBU’s
drones coming, but, if they did, it was too late.

And once they went down, the rest of the drones
could carve clearer paths to their targets.

The Grave Stone radar went down next, meaning Belbek’s
S-400s became a non-factor.

The entire battery was blinded with this single strike.

All it could do
was fire blindly into the sky, assuming it fired at all.

After that, the Pantsir-S2 was taken
out.

Again, this was a logical next target.

We mentioned earlier that this air defense system
has its own built-in radar, so destroying it also meant destroying what may have been the last piece
of equipment in Belbek that could have located Ukraine’s drones.

Finally, with the path cleared,
Ukraine hit Russia’s MiG-31.

A massive explosion turned that fighter jet into a pile of ash,
NewsSky reports.

After such a successful Ukrainian strike, you might expect Russia’s authorities
to have at least come out with claims that the drones were shot down and that nothing really
happened.

That did happen on the local level, NewsSky reports, as it claims that regional
authorities put out some vague notifications that spoke about “repelling the attack”
even as the Belbek base burned.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry has stayed completely
silent, likely beca use it can’t twist a Ukrainian strike against one of the most legitimate military
targets in Crimea into a supposed terroristic attack against Crimea’s civilians.

That is
definitively not what happened.

So, the ministry seems content to pretend that nothing happened
while hoping that only those who live near the Belbek base learn about the explosions and fires
that consumed it on December 18.

As for Ukraine, it will be satisfied with yet another successful
strike against the Russian military in Crimea as it continues a campaign to excise the occupiers
from a peninsula that Putin annexed by force back in 2014.

What this strike does, as have the
many others that Ukraine has conducted in Crimea, is further weaken Putin’s hold on a piece of
territory that was illegally snatched from Ukraine.

GSI points out that the entire war
has seen Ukraine gradually expand its Crimea strategy.

What started with isolated strikes
against Black Sea Fleet ships sailing out of Crimea has grown to Ukraine striking targets
like Belbek to destroy Russia’s air defenses.

“Ukraine’s current Crimean strategy will not
necessarily win them the war, but by slowly constricting Crimea, it prevents Russia from
targeting Ukraine’s soft underbelly,” GSI says.

The goal was to first limit Crimea’s viability as
a logistical hub, which Ukraine has achieved.

Now, the continuation of the coordinated campaign of
airstrikes against Crimea is designed to force Russia to withdraw from Crimea.

In turn, that
ruins the Russian air defense presence in the Black Sea, in addition to preventing any more
airstrikes against the Ukrainian mainland from the peninsula.

There’s a long way to go before
Ukraine achieves this second objective.

However, as Euromaidan Press said in June, Crimea
is one of Putin’s greatest weaknesses.

Ukraine must bet it all on making the peninsula a
strategic irrelevance, not least because there may be as many as 160,000 Russian soldiers stationed
there who can’t make it onto the Ukrainian mainland because of what Ukraine has done to
the Black Sea Fleet.

Crimea should become a wasteland of Russia’s military assets, perhaps to
the point that Putin starts to think that holding onto Crimea is more trouble, and definitely
far more expensive, than it’s worth.

Perhaps Peter Dickinson put it best in a January article
shared by the League of Ukrainian Canadians.

“For the time being, Moscow remains in denial over
the deteriorating security situation in Crimea and continues to promote the peninsula as a safe
holiday destination,” the league says.

“However, if the current Ukrainian campaign continues
to gain momentum, the Kremlin will be forced to abandon this business-as-usual approach and
acknowledge that the Russian occupation of Crimea is under threat.

” Such an admission would be
massively humiliating for Putin.

It might also end up being enough to show the Russian civilians now
living in Crimea that their homes aren’t as safe as Putin claims, which only adds pressure to Putin
as he tries to maintain his grip on the peninsula.

Ukraine is certainly determined enough to keep
hitting Crimea hard and often to force Putin to surrender the territory.

Before this latest
SBU strike, Ukraine’s elite Ghost Unit spent a couple of weeks raining hell on Crimea, taking
out aircraft, radar stations, and a host of other targets in the process.

Find out more about that
series of attacks in our video, and remember to subscribe to The Military Show for more up-to-date
videos covering Ukraine’s Crimean campaign.