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The Jets Fell to the Sea
Ukraine’s naval drones just shot down two Russian fighters near Novorossiysk. The Black Sea is no longer Russian airspace — or safe harbor.
For the second time in just four months, Ukraine’s sea drone program has crossed a new threshold — this time, shooting down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets roughly 50 kilometers off the coast of Novorossiysk using U.S.-made infrared missiles fired from Magura-7 naval drones. It’s the first recorded instance in history of fixed-wing aircraft being downed by naval unmanned systems.
And it didn’t come out of nowhere.
Back on December 31, Kyiv used a similar method to destroy two Russian helicopters — one Mi-8 confirmed down, another damaged — also via Magura drones. At the time, that was treated as a breakthrough. Now it looks more like a warm-up.
The technical evolution is accelerating. Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) has begun equipping these sea drones with infrared-guided missiles — specifically modified AIM-9 Sidewinders and Russian-made R-73s. These are heat-seeking, self-guided systems that don’t require heavy onboard…
