Direct proof of use
The S-125 Neva/Pechora, also known as SA-3 Goa, appears in the 2014 Yemen Civil War record as a captured or inherited Yemeni air-defense asset under Houthi-aligned control rather than as a publicly confirmed missile-launch system. Oryx reported on March 26, 2015, that the opening Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen focused in part on the single S-125 surface-to-air missile site around Sanaa, alongside S-75 and 2K12 sites.
Oryx also described Yemen's air-defense apparatus as having been taken over by Houthi militants in the preceding months. The Washington Institute later assessed that when the Houthis took Sanaa in September 2014 and other parts of Yemen in March 2015, they seized most of the government's ex-Soviet surface-to-air missile inventory and associated radars, including SA-3 systems.
Sources: Saudi Aircraft Pound Al-Dailami Airbase In Yemen, Iran's Support to Houthi Air Defenses in Yemen
Timeline
The S-125's Yemen-war context followed the Houthi takeover of Sanaa and the collapse of the transitional government. CFR summarizes the civil war as beginning in 2014 when Houthi forces took control of Sanaa and says the Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes in March 2015 after the conflict widened.
On March 26, 2015, Oryx reported that coalition strikes had focused on Sanaa-area air-defense sites, including one S-125 site. By April 2018, the Washington Institute assessed that many fixed Houthi-held air-defense sites, radars, and interceptor aircraft had been destroyed by mid-April 2015, while the Houthi air-defense threat later shifted toward improvised and externally supplied systems.
Sources: CFR Yemen and Red Sea Tracker, Saudi Aircraft Pound Al-Dailami Airbase In Yemen, Iran's Support to Houthi Air Defenses in Yemen
Narrative
The supported role for the S-125 in Yemen is fixed-site air defense around the capital. The system belonged to Yemen's older Soviet-designed air-defense layer and was documented around Sanaa at the start of the coalition intervention, when Houthi-aligned forces and allied state units controlled the capital's military infrastructure.
The public record separates possession and fielding from confirmed firing. The available sources support Houthi-aligned control of SA-3/S-125-class assets and the targeting of an S-125 site, but they do not identify a dated S-125 launch, aircraft hit, or kill claim that can be independently tied to the system. Washington Institute analysis instead describes the early fixed-site Soviet-era systems as obsolete, damaged, or quickly neutralized, while later Houthi air-defense activity relied more on adapted air-to-air missiles, SA-6-related systems, and newer Iranian-linked materiel.
In catalog terms, the S-125 entry therefore represents captured or inherited air-defense infrastructure in the early war rather than an active, source-confirmed shootdown weapon. Its presence still mattered operationally because coalition strikes treated the site as part of the initial air-defense target set around Sanaa.
Sources: Saudi Aircraft Pound Al-Dailami Airbase In Yemen, Iran's Support to Houthi Air Defenses in Yemen, The Houthi War Machine, CFR Yemen and Red Sea Tracker
