On May 3, 2025, for the first time in world military history, an unmanned surface vehicle destroyed a combat aircraft. A Ukrainian Magura naval drone equipped with a R-73 guided missile struck a Russian Su-30 multi-role fighter near the port of Novorossiysk.
Information reported The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, as well as confirmed by Russian military bloggers. According to the GUR, the operation was carried out by the fighters of the special unit Group 13. As a result of the impact, the Su-30, worth about 50 million dollars, caught fire in the air and fell into the waters of the Black Sea.
GUR emphasized that this historic attack was carried out by a missile from the Magura sea platform – in fact, this is the first time in history that a drone from the sea successfully destroyed an air target of this level.
It will be recalled that in 2023, Ukrainian intelligence reported on the integration of Soviet-style infrared R-73 missiles on naval platforms. In December of the same year, these missiles were already used to destroy two Mi-8 helicopters — this became the first successful example of the use of naval drones against aerial objects.
The R-73 is an air-to-air missile that has been adapted to be launched from land and sea platforms. Even before the full-scale invasion of Russia, Ukrainian enterprises were engaged in the modernization of such missiles, which now makes it possible to successfully use them in fundamentally new scenarios.
