Ukraine confirms striking Russian air defence in Crimea, near Luhansk

The Ukrainian Armed Forces on Monday said that they had attacked Russian air defence positions near the temporarily occupied city of Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine, and on the western coast of Russian-annexed Crimea.

In a brief post, Ukraine’s Armed Forces strategic communications department, or StratCom, said a Russian S-400 air defence system had been destroyed near Luhansk on 25 October, and a "strategic air defence facility" had been hit on the western coast of Crimea on 30 October.

The attack near Luhansk had previously been reported by Russian sources, which claimed that Ukraine had used the ATACMS missiles it had received from the United States.

Some sources reported the missile strike had hit a Russian air defence regiment in the city of Olenivka, in the Luhansk region, allegedly injuring 17 occupiers and damaging five vehicles.

There are no independent sources to verify those claims.

It is, however, known that Kyiv had received about 20 ATACMS long-range missiles with cluster warheads, one of the most basic types capable of hitting targets 165 kilometres away.

The ATACMS already were confirmed to have successfully hit the airfields near the temporarily occupied cities of Berdiansk and Luhansk, destroying a number of Russian aircraft.