Ukrainian drone pilots from the 429th Achilles Brigade burned a Russian Kasta-2E radar near the village of Volotovo in Belgorod Oblast, brigade commander Yurii "Achilles" Fedorenko posted on Telegram on 27 April. The site sits about 80 km from Ukraine's state border. The approximate value of the destroyed system is around $60 million, Army Inform noted.
Two drones: recon, then the kill
First, a Ukrainian reconnaissance UAV detected the Kasta-2E in the Volotovo area in Russia's Belgorod Oblast, adjacent to northeastern Ukrainian Kharkiv Oblast.
Militarnyi noted that a kamikaze drone equipped with an automatic target-capture system and in-flight target correction then struck the antenna module directly. The hit is likely to keep the radar out of combat duty for an extended period, given the complex and expensive repairs the antenna will need.
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What the Kasta-2E does for Russian air defense
The brigade described the Kasta-2E as the "eyes" of Russian air defense: it spots aircraft, missiles, and even UAVs early. The system feeds the data to Russian surface-to-air missile systems and aerospace command-and-control. The mobile two-coordinate station can detect and track up to 200 targets within a 150-km radius, including aerial targets at extremely low altitudes.
The system runs on KamAZ-4310 trucks: a hardware vehicle, an antenna vehicle, and a cable trailer, plus main and backup power generators and a remote operator station that can sit up to 300 meters away.
Russia's "eyes" keep going dark
Russia's Kasta family of radars has been a recurring target for Ukraine.
- Madiar's drone unit destroyed one on the Zaporizhzhia front on 1 March.
- HUR's Prymary special forces hit a Kasta-2E2 in occupied Crimea in early December 2025 alongside other radar strikes.
- The previous confirmed Kasta hit was in mid-March 2026 in occupied Crimea, Militarnyi noted in a separate report.
$205 million in one week
Just a day earlier, Ukraine's General Staff shared footage of recent Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) strikes on Russian air-defense systems.
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The SBS noted that its operators hit S-350 Vityaz, TOR-M2KM, TOR-M2, and OSA SAM systems over the previous week, bringing the total value of damaged Russian equipment for those targets to over $205 million.
