For the first time in history, according to the Ukrainian army, its special forces managed to hit a Russian army helicopter with a missile fired from a Magura V5 naval drone. An aircraft of the same type was damaged. Earlier this month, a helicopter had already come under fire from another naval drone, the Sea Baby.
Ukrainian naval drones are no longer just threats to Russian ships cruising in the Black Sea. They are also formidable for enemy aircraft operating at low altitude. This reality has once again become manifest in the context of the war between kyiv and Moscow, near occupied Crimea.
At the end of 2024, the General Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (HUR MOU) published on the Internet a brief video provided by the soldiers of the special unit of the 13 group of defense intelligence services . The video mixes several targeting and combat sequences that took place on December 31.
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According to details provided by the army, the attack was carried out by the special forces of Group 13 using a Magura V5 naval drone, a machine launched in the summer of 2023 and which can carry up to 320 kg of explosives and speeding at more than 75 km/h. The Magura V5 has already been used on various occasions as a kamikaze drone against Russian warships.
But this time, it was not for a suicide mission that the Magura V5 was used. According to the ministry, the naval drone served as a missile launch platform. Specifically, it is reported that the unmanned boat was equipped with R-73 SeeDragon missiles, and that it used them against Russian military helicopters.
In the video, which includes the Christmas carol Carol of the Bells (originally written by a Ukrainian author), shooting can be seen from the sea, with bullets hitting the water, and targeting operations — including a fighter plane and a helicopter.
Russian helicopter attacked by missile fired from Ukrainian naval drone
But above all we see a target acquisition – a helicopter – and the departure of a missile, with a characteristic drag. We also see the sending of decoys from the helicopter, to try to deceive the missile. The video, although of poor quality and in black and white (night vision), shows at the end the helicopter crashing into the Black Sea.
« During a battle in the Black Sea near the Tarkhankut peninsula in temporarily occupied Crimea, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was destroyed », Wrote the ministry. “ Another similar enemy helicopter was hit and managed to return to its home airfield ”, it was added. There is no mention of survivors or prisoners.
According to Ukrainian military authorities, this strike by an R-73 SeeDragon missile from a Magura V5 naval drone is unprecedented. It is in any case “ the first time in history » that a helicopter is hit in this way. The model in question, Mil Mi-8, is an old aircraft, launched in 1967, but which Russia has in very large numbers.
Group 13 communicates from time to time on certain feats of arms, communication also being a tool in the service of war. We remember, for example, that in February 2024, he published another video showing an attack by kamikaze naval drones against a Russian ship. the targeted missile corvette had sunk.
But if the use of naval drones against Russian ships has been observed for a long time, their use against flying targets demonstrates a new approach – driven by the needs on the ground. We already knew that flying drones attacked helicopters. Now the threat also comes from the sea.
This new reality came to light in early December, when a Ukrainian naval drone shot down a Russian helicopter. At the time, the machine in question, a Sea Baby model, was equipped with heavy machine guns and supported by a targeting system, although it could also carry multiple rocket launcher systems.
