1st USF Center Hunted Down Russian Smerch During Shelling of Zaporizhzhia

Unmanned Systems Forces destroyed a rare Russian Smerch MLRS in the Zaporizhzhia direction.

This was reported by the Commander of Unmanned Systems Forces Robert Brovdi, call sign ‘Madyar,’ on his Telegram channel.

The Russian installation was destroyed at the very moment of the shelling of Zaporizhzhia.

The strike drone recorded the launch of rocket shells, which made it possible to instantly calculate the enemy’s position.

The drone attacked the launch guides: the system caught fire, and the machine’s ammunition began to detonate.

The strike was carried out on February 21, 2026. The enemy actively uses these systems to shell the civilian population of Zaporizhzhia and the region.

The destroyed complex is a modernized version called Tornado-S.

The developers digitized the Soviet Smerch systems, significantly improving accuracy and guidance and increasing the flight range of the rockets.

The upgraded complex can hit targets at a distance of up to 120 km thanks to high-precision ammunition with satellite navigation.

This is already the fourth installation of this type that Ukrainian defenders have destroyed during the full-scale invasion. The invaders lost the first such installation in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv region.

The second Smerch was destroyed the following year. A video of the strike was published in September 2023.

As a reminder, in October 2025, Militarnyi reported on the success of the Lazars Group special forces unit of the National Guard of Ukraine.

At that time, the special forces destroyed the Russian 9K58 Smerch multiple launch rocket system with the help of a drone. It was the third MLRS of this type lost since the start of the full-scale invasion.