Close-up of Russia's S-400 'fire dragon' guarding Crimea

Along with the announcement of a large-scale live-fire exercise in Crimea on March 20, Russian military officials also officially released images of the S-400 air defense system that the country brought to this peninsula on the Black Sea.

Russia's large-scale military exercises in Crimea involve 2,500 airborne troops and about 600 pieces of equipment from the Black Sea Fleet and Aerospace Forces.

Three divisions were put on alert simultaneously and part of them were deployed to Crimea along with weapons and other equipment.

Previously, on January 14, for the first time in Crimea, Russia began to carry out combat duty of an anti-aircraft missile regiment equipped with the S-400 system. However, after more than 2 months, Russia has just released images of this state-of-the-art air defense system.

Lieutenant General Sevastyanov said that combat duty in Crimea is carried out simultaneously with the S-300 and S-400 systems.

General Sevastyanov particularly emphasized that Crimea is now capable of tracking and shooting down all air targets, including "invisible" ones.

The S-400 missile system, developed by the Almaz-Antey Design Bureau, Russia, is an improved version with more powerful features than the S-300 series of surface-to-air missile systems. This system was put into service in April 2007 and first deployed in the field 4 months later.

The system can destroy all objects appearing in the air, including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or ballistic missiles, at an altitude of 50 km and a maximum target speed of up to 4,800 m/s.

The S-400 is capable of tracking 300 targets and simultaneously shooting down 36 of them. In particular, the S-400 is capable of shooting down strategic missiles with a range of up to 3,500 km, nearly 4 times that of the US Patriot system.

This missile complex integrates anti-jamming multi-function radar, automatic detection and aiming system, air defense missiles, launchers and command and control center.

The S-400 can fire five types of missiles to create a layered defense mechanism.

According to TPO