HISTORY

At the event on August 6 was a Su-24 with the number “white 09” with a thin yellow border. Interestingly it had a SCALP-EG missile with French symbols under the right

wing and a Storm Shadow with British symbols under the left wing.

hit from a number of enemy radars detected.

The F-16 cannot carry the Franco-British

Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missiles,

which the Ukrainians are using effectively, and

there is no talk yet of possible US deliveries.

What it can carry, however, are Harpoon antiship missiles, which Ukraine also already has.

And that’s not good news for Russia’s badly

beleaguered Black Sea Fleet.

Crimea “locked”

Speaking of the Black Sea and Storm Shadow

missiles, these are among weapons that allow

Ukraine to gradually gain superiority over the

western part of the sea and attack Crimea

even without a strong navy. Already on Sunday,

August 6, two bridges connecting Crimea to the

Kherson region were hit and seriously damaged

by Storm Shadow missiles. These were the

important Chonkhar Bridge in the north-west

of Crimea and the smaller Henichesk Bridge,

which leads to the Arabat Spit in the northeast of the peninsula. The destruction of these

bridges would sever Crimea’s links with the

frontline areas in southern Ukraine.

The destruction of the Kerch Bridge would

then cut off the whole of Crimea for good,

which could then only be supplied by ships. The

Ukrainians regularly try to do this as well. During

the reporting period, they attacked this bridge

on Saturday, August 12, with S-200 missiles.

These are old anti-aircraft missiles from the

1960s, which Ukraine decommissioned in 2013,

but kept in storage and now uses as ballistic

missiles after modification (presumably

they have new GPS guidance fitted). In this

role, they have a range of up to 400 km. The

missiles are 11 m long and weigh almost

8 tones. At Mach 4, they thus have tremendous

kinetic energy on impact. They also carry

a warhead with 217 kg of explosive. Ukraine

has already used them in July in attacks on an

industrial facility in the Briansk region and on

the Morozovsk airport in the Rostov region. In

the August attack, three S-200 missiles were

aimed at the Kerch Bridge. According to the

Russian side, they were all destroyed in time

by air defenses. The smoke that appeared on

the bridge was only a precautionary protective

measure. Interestingly, however, two streaks

of black smoke were also visible in the white

smoke screen.

On Wednesday, August 23, Ukrainian

missiles hit and partially destroyed a battery

of S-400 anti-aircraft system in Olenivka

on the Crimean coast (about 120 km north of

Sevastopol and 140 km south of Kherson. In

doing so, they probably used Neptune missiles

developed for anti-ship warfare but also

capable of hitting targets on the coast. But that

was not all – the next day (or night) Ukrainian

special forces landed on the coast between

Olenivka and Mayak. They completed the work

of destruction and raised the Ukrainian flag in

Crimea (August 24 was a Ukrainian national

holiday). The Russians claim to have killed

all the Ukrainian soldiers in this action; the

Ukrainians claim to have pulled back without

A burning Russian Tu-22M3 bomber at Solcy-2 airfield. The Russian side initially claimed that it was only slightly

damaged in the attack on August 19.

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casualties. All that is certain is that the S-400

battery was destroyed. Ukrainian troops from

boats also seized four oil platforms, on which

the Russian had radars mounted, in the Black

Sea during August. All of this is leading to the

blinding of Russian defenses and a greater

intensity of Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, which

we will address in a follow-up.

Attacks on airports

Ukraine has not only attacked Crimea, but

also Russian territory on the opposite side. In

addition to the ongoing drone campaign against

Moscow, the attacks on Russian airports are of

particular interest for the topic of this series.

On Saturday, August 19, the Solcy-2 base in

Novgorod region, 620 km from Ukraine, was

attacked in broad daylight. At first Russia

admitted to the damaging of one bomber, but

then photographs emerged showing that one

Tu-22M3 bomber was burned to the ground in

this attack. Satellite images later confirmed

that the base had been evacuated and the

remaining bombers had flown further north.

Two days later, on Monday, August 21, the

Shaykovka base in the Kaluga region, from

which Tu-22M3s also operate, was also

attacked. Ukrainian intelligence claimed that

in both of these attacks two bombers were

destroyed and two damaged. The Russian

side confirmed the attack on the Shaykovka

airfield, adding that all Ukrainian drones

were destroyed. We will probably not know

how it really happened until a long time from

Burning Il-76 at Pskov airport after the night attack

on August 29.

October 2023