HISTORY

was shot down by the Ukrainian AA defense but three of them hit the city center. The

Officers‘ House was targeted. It is a building

where the cultural events used to take place

but in the past couple of months mourning

ceremonies for the fallen Ukrainina pilots

were held there as well. Besides this cultural establishment the neighboring administrative building and the parking lot in front

of it were hit. The Russian missiles killed 24

civilians including three little children.

There is nothing new about this. The rocket attacks on the Ukrainian cities were

the Russian revenge for sinking the cruiser Moscow – even though according to the

official Russian statement the Ukrainians

had nothing to do with it and the ship sank

as a result of a fire caused by negligence.

For fear of the Ukrainian rockets the

Russians started to withdraw majority of

their ships from Sevastopol in Crimea to

Novorossiisk in the eastern part of the Black

Sea. They also started to rehearse the Crimean bridge defense. This bridge connects

the penninsula with the Russian mainland

over the Kerch strait. The smoke screen

they practiced raised the eyebrows though.

The efficiency of such a screen against the

moderna weapons that do not need the optical guidence is rather questionable and then

they somehow forgot to close the bridge for

the civilian traffic resulting in several accidents due to the dense smoke.

A Kalibr missile shot down by Ukrainian air defense forces during an attack on the town of Vinnytsia.

Small losses in the air

The airplane losses on both sides correspond to the long range rocket shelling

tactics. They dropped significantly in comparison to the intense deployment during

the first months of war. Not that they were

deployed less but practically neither side

crosses the frontlines. During the heaviest

fighting for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk

in Luhansk area the Ukrainian air force

flew more than 20 missions daily in this

sector – quite a decent number for an air

force which according to the Russian claims

was completely destroyed during the first

days of war (and several times afterwards).

However the Ukrainian helicopters and

Su-25 fighter—bombers completely adopted the Russian tactics to fire their unguided

missiles on the ballistic trajectory from the

safe distance. They perform as an airborne

rocket launcher. Needless to say such an

application of the air unguided missiles is

extremely inaccurate and its effect is rather

phsycological – it boosts morale of the own

troops who can see their air force in action

and forces the enemy to take cover at least.

During the month of our focus two confirmed

aerial kills were scored, both on the Russian

side. On June 18, in the vicinity of Svitlodar,

the soldiers of the 72nd motorized division hit the Russian Su-25 with the portable

rocket Igla. Pilot ejected and became POW.

His name was Andrei Fedorchuk, a former

Russian AF Major currently working as

22

INFO Eduard

Ukrainian Su-25 armed by missiles with inscriptions expressing revenge for the attack on Vinnytsia.

a mercenary for so called Wagners. His

monthly pay was 205 000 rubles, an equivalent of approximately 3500 USD. Out of

curiosity - for a better orientation he had

a Garmin GPS device taped in the cockpit

and there was another navigational app on

his smartphone. It is already third or fourth

„Wagner’s“ Su-25 shot down by Ukrainians

but for the first time they captured the mercenary pilot alive.

Another Russian airplane hit, as recorded

on video, was scored by the Ukrainian soldiers on June 27 firing the British portable

Martlet missile. They hit Ka-52 helicopter

which deployment in Ukraine turned into its

graveyard. At least 16 have been destroyed.

During the last moth more losses were reported besides the aircraft shot down by the

enemy. The effort to avoid the Ukrainian AA

fire by flying as low as possible backfired on

two Russian Su-25 and one Mi-8 helicopter

which crashed after hitting the electrical lines. There are combat losses on the Ukrainian side as well, in all cases documented

and therefore confirmed there were UAVs.

On June 29, in the Russian Kursk area, T-141

drone was destroyed and on July 3, in the

same sector two Tu-143. There were the old,

Soviet-era reconnaissance equipment. It is

possible that Ukrainians intented to deploy

them as kamikaze drones to attack importonat ground targets. They have executed

several missions like that.

Kamikaze drones

The Ukrainians use not only HIMARS rocket

launchers but all available means to attack

the ammunition and fuel dumps in Donbas

or occupied territories in the south. Targets

within the 155 mm caliber artillery range are

shelled by howitzers. The drones are deployed on more remote targets. While during

the first months of war the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 was very successful there are different conditions on the Donbas front. The

Russians concentrated a lot of electronic

warfare equipment there to jam the signals

and also concentrated their AA defenses

there. Previously Bayraktars easily achieved success against poorly defended Russian columns which is not possible in Donbas. The electronic jamming eliminates the

smaller drones and even thought Bayraktars make it through they are met by AA fire.

Therefore the Ukrainains had to adapt. To

attack they launch the kamikaze drones

August 2022