One of Syria’s Pantsir-S1 missile defense systems was destroyed by an Israeli SkyStriker drone, military expert Vladislav Shurygin told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.The specialist noted that the SkyStriker, a so-called kamikaze drone produced by Elbit Systems, is a small, slow (up to 190 kph) unmanned aerial vehicle with a pusher propeller and an electric engine. The drone ways a mere 35 kg, of which the payload accounts for 5-10 kg. It has a maximum flight time of two hours, and is controlled remotely by an operator who can view what the drone is seeing.
According to Shurygin, using the drone in daylight is problematic, since it is vulnerable even to small arms fire, but at night time “flocks” of these “kamikazes” moving towards the aerial defense position “can pose a serious problem to the enemy”.
On the night of 20 January, Israel attacked several Iranian military targets in Syria. A video of the attack, published by the Israel Defense Forces, shows A Russian-made Pantsir-S1 missile system being destroyed.