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Ukraine's military has shared dramatic footage of a Russian TOR-M2 missile system being destroyed in a drone strike.
Ukraine's security service carried out the "kamikaze" drone strike on the short-range surface-to-air missile system, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces wrote on Facebook Tuesday.
It is the fourth TOR missile system to be taken out in this month, the General Staff said.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.
Russia operates several iterations of the TOR short- to medium-range missile system, designed to strike air targets. Variants of the TOR-M2, which are upgrades of the TOR-M1, can lock onto multiple targets at the same time, according to Russian state military exporter, Rosoboronexport. It has a range of up to 15 kilometers (9 miles), Russian state media reported in 2019.
The radar on the "cutting-edge" TOR-M2 is "capable of timely spotting all types of drones," according to a piece published by state media outlet Tass in February.
The TOR-M2 is designed to combat guided or smart air bombs, aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Tass reported in 2019. An Arctic version of the missile system, the TOR-M2DT, has also been sent to Ukraine in recent months.
On February 2, Ukraine's defense ministry said the "Arctic TOR-M2DT air defense system became the star of Russian television when it was sent to Ukraine."
"But soon a Ukrainian drone introduced it to Ukrainian gunners," the ministry wrote on Twitter. "It burned brightly, the fire extinguisher did not help."
According to Dutch open-source outlet Oryx, Russia has lost a total of 104 surface-to-air missile systems in Ukraine since the start of all-out war on February 24, 2022. However, these statistics only include visually confirmed losses. Two TOR-M2DTs have been confirmed as destroyed by this count, as of Wednesday.
In updated statistics posted by Ukraine's General Staff on Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said Russia had lost 2,659 artillery systems and 277 anti-aircraft systems since the start of the war. The General Staff also updated the reported death toll of Russian soldiers to 172,340, which comes in higher than many Western estimates.
On Wednesday, the British defense ministry said heavy fighting continued in and around the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut. The ruined settlement in eastern Ukraine has long been a hot spot of clashes between Ukrainian fighters and the Russian military and mercenary forces.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more