Occupiers' air defence systems near Yevpatoria were photographed by beachgoers

MONDAY, 22 AUGUST 2022, 08:10

Vacationers in occupied Crimea photographed Russian S-400 air defence systems near Yevpatoria and published the photos on social networks.

Source: Radio Svoboda

Details: Photos of the weapons were taken around Lake Terekly (Solone) near the village of Molochne. Air defence operations in the area were reported on Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday evening, the Russian-appointed "governor" of Russian-occupied Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, also wrote in Telegram that the Russian air defence systems "destroyed another target on the approaches to Belbek (military airfield - ed.) from Yevpatoria." On Saturday, the occupiers reported that they shot down a drone over the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, but it flew onto the roof.

The independent OSINT researcher Benjamin Pittet drew attention to a photo of air defence systems published at the end of July by a VKontakte user. The photo contained geographic coordinates. These coordinates show that the pictures were taken near Molochny.

There are other similar photos on the internet.

Radio Svoboda managed to find photos of installations geolocated to the same place that were taken nearby. They were published by another VKontakte user. The photos allow us to confirm that they are of the S-400 installations.

Judging by the geolocation of their author's phone (quite accurate, as indicated by the labels in his other posts), the photos were taken 1.5 kilometres from the field, on the spit between Terekly and the Black Sea.

The Planet.com satellite imagery service allows you to see traces of the possible location of anti-aircraft installations from space and to determine that activity in this area began no later than July 15, after which the number of roads in the field increased.

Background: Over the past week, there were explosions at several military facilities in Crimea, including at the Saki airfield in Novofedorivka. There, as the Reuters agency wrote citing a estern official, up to half of the aircraft of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation may have been destroyed.

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