Weaponized Russian Jet-Powered Target Drone Shot Down Over Black Sea: Ukraine

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) says its air defense unit shot down a Russian jet drone headed to the Black Sea port city of Odesa. A spokesman for GUR told us that it was a Dan-M, a target drone the Russians have converted into a cruise missile-like capability. A Ukrainian military publication, however, suggested it could have been an Iranian-designed jet drone.

In a post on Telegram Friday, GUR released a 34-second video claiming to show the interception. It opens with the launch of a missile and then cuts to a different view, showing something exploding upon hitting the water. It does not show the intercept itself.

Shot Down Over the Black Sea: russia's Newest Jet-Powered Drone Destroyed by DIU-Developed Missile System pic.twitter.com/28oOS3xDk7

— Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) May 30, 2025

The drone was downed by “a mobile anti-aircraft missile system equipped with R-73 missiles, developed by specialists of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine with the support of foreign partners,” GUR stated. This is a ground-based system, GUR spokesman Andrii Yusov told us. In addition to equipping its Su-27 and MiG-29 fighter fleets, Ukraine has used the Soviet-era heat-seeking R-73 air-to-air missiles on a range of platforms, including two types of so-called ‘FrankenSAM’ surface-to-air missile systems and drone boats.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/weaponized-russian-jet-powered-target-225349889.html