Ukraine Strikes Russian Su-24 at Saky, Threatening Crimea-Based Aviation Operations

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian Su-24 combat aircraft at the Saky airfield in temporarily occupied Crimea on September 15 and overnight into September 16, the country's General Staff reported.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced the operation on its official Telegram channel on September 16.

According to the statement, Ukrainian defense units struck “a number of important military targets of the Russian aggressor” during the attacks.

Beyond the Saky strike, the General Staff listed additional targets hit across temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories:

• A storage, preparation, and launch site for Russian strike drones near the city of Donetsk;

• drone control points in Staromlynivka and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, and in Pokrovske in the Zaporizhzhia region;

• an ammunition depot in Dovzhansk in the Luhansk region;

• fuel and lubricant storage bases in Rovenky in the Luhansk region and Berdiansk in the Zaporizhzhia region;

• "Grenadier" technical reconnaissance posts in Suvorove and Rysove in temporarily occupied Crimea.

The Su-24 is a Soviet-designed supersonic tactical strike aircraft built for all-weather, low-altitude attack missions and recognizable by its variable-sweep wings and side-by-side cockpit.

The upgraded Su-24M variant carries guided missiles, bombs, and rockets across multiple hardpoints and remains a mainstay of Russian tactical aviation. Damage to such an aircraft further thins the pool of strike planes Moscow operates from temporarily occupied Crimea.

The upgraded Su-24M variant remains in Russian service and can carry guided missiles, bombs, and rockets across multiple hardpoints.

The General Staff said operations against Russian military targets would continue.

“Work on key military targets of the enemy continues,” the statement said.

The Saky airfield has repeatedly featured in Ukraine's campaign against Russian military aviation in temporarily occupied Crimea.

On August 22, Ukrainian forces destroyed a Su-24M aircraft and four pieces of airfield equipment there, alongside strikes on drone-control relay stations in Russia's Bryansk region.

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