# Ukraine says sea drone shot down Russian Su-30 over Black Sea
Ukraine’s military intelligence said on 2025-05-03 that a Magura naval drone destroyed a Russian Su-30 fighter jet near the port of Novorossiysk in the Black Sea, describing the strike as a world first.
The supplied report from The Kyiv Independent says the attack allegedly took place on May 2 and was carried out by Group 13, a special unit within Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR. According to the agency’s account, the drone was fitted with a missile warhead and used in coordination with Ukraine’s Security Service and other defense forces.
The claim is significant because it would mark the first known time a sea drone brought down a combat aircraft. The intelligence agency said the jet was hit in midair and crashed into the sea, and the report notes that the Su-30 is a multi-role fighter valued at roughly $50 million. But the source also makes clear that the Kyiv Independent could not independently confirm the claim.
That caveat matters. In a wartime information environment, dramatic battlefield claims often circulate before independent verification is possible. The article in the packet therefore does not present the downing as established fact beyond Ukraine’s intelligence statement and the video it published. A careful report must preserve that distinction.
The same source places the claimed strike in a broader pattern of Ukrainian drone operations at sea. It notes that Ukraine had previously used the Magura V5 to down two Russian Mi-8 helicopters on Dec. 31, 2024, which had itself been treated as a milestone for naval drone warfare. The new claim, if confirmed, would push that line of development further by extending sea-drone reach into fixed-wing air combat.
The report also describes Russian claims of its own. Overnight on May 3, local Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone attack in Krasnodar Krai injured four people and damaged homes and a grain terminal in Novorossiysk. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it intercepted more than 170 Ukrainian drones and several naval drones across Crimea and the Black Sea. Those competing assertions highlight how contested the information space remained around the strike.
Because the evidence is limited to one detailed report, this article does not attempt to resolve the tactical dispute. It simply records what Ukraine said, where it said the strike occurred and what the source itself could and could not verify. That is the appropriate standard for a claim of this type.
The event date is 2025-05-03. Source 4871 underpins the article.
