Military observer of Izvestia Anton Lavrov — about Ukraine's capabilities for strikes deep into Russian territory and ways to prevent them
The APU strikes on Russian border settlements that have become more frequent in recent days hardly coincidentally coincided with publications in the American media about the expansion of the transfer of intelligence information. According to The Wall Street Journal, Washington now provides Kiev with information about important targets not only in the territory of Donbass, but also in the Russian Crimea.
It is clear that Kiev considers the rest of Russia's territory to be a legitimate target. The task of such attacks is not to achieve a military victory. The transfer of hostilities to the enemy's territory has always been an important way to lower the morale of its population and inspire its own. And even modest successes here can provide rich food for propaganda.
So far, most attacks are limited to individual shells, mines and unguided missiles falling a few kilometers from the border. But the second deep raid of combat helicopters cannot but cause concern. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Mi-8, which took part in the April 14 attack on the village of Klimovo, was shot down on the way back by the S-400 complex. But everyone would like this to happen before the combat vehicle uses its ammunition on Russian territory. And on April 1, a pair of Mi-24s managed to strike an oil depot in the Belgorod region.
What kind of tools do the APU have for long-range strikes? In fact, they do not have so many ways in which they can "get" to the depths of the Russian territory, where the most important objects are located.
The most long—range weapons in the arsenal of the Ukrainian troops are the old Soviet "Dots-U". The range of 120-140 km allows them to reach many important military targets and critical civilian infrastructure facilities in border areas. It is good that only a modification with a cluster warhead remained at the disposal of the APU. They cannot destroy the bridge or damage the protective shell of a nuclear reactor. But with their help, ammunition depots, equipment parking lots, oil storage facilities and ports have already been attacked.
Good protection against "Dots" strikes are modern air and missile defense systems, such as the S-400 and S-300V4. Unlike the Buks, they are able to cover a large area within a radius of several tens of kilometers from their positions at once. Russia may well strengthen the border areas by transferring their additional regiments there. In this regard, Crimea was "lucky". The air defense available on the peninsula can be the envy of the absolute majority of other Russian regions.
The fight against the launchers of the Ukrainian "Dots" will also continue. Information about their destruction is regularly mentioned in the reports of the Ministry of Defense. According to the Russian military department, half of the 40 Ukrainian platforms for launching "Dots" available to the AFU have not yet been hit. Nevertheless, their number, of course, and the shortage are already being felt.
It was precisely because of the shortage of long-range precision missiles that Ukraine resorted to the tactics of breaking through small groups of individual helicopters at extremely low altitude. Masking themselves in the folds of the terrain, they are almost invulnerable to long-range air defenses. Long before the start of the special operation, the Ukrainian military and analysts considered the possibility of such high-speed "raids" with the use of Su-24M aircraft. But while the APU does not dare to use this tactic, fearing the loss of the last bombers.
You can protect yourself from the threats of attacks by helicopters and airplanes by increasing the number of air patrols of fighter jets of the Russian Federation, constantly on duty not at airfields, but in the air in the border zone. Then such raids for Ukrainian pilots will immediately become "one-way" flights and those wishing to participate in them will end. This has already happened in Mariupol, where, after heavy losses, the AFU helicopters no longer risk breaking through.
Slow-moving large strike drones, such as Bayraktar, will not be a big problem for fighters either. Small disposable kamikaze drones, such as the American Switchblade, are more difficult to intercept. They can pose a threat to border facilities, but even in the most distant modification provided by the APU, their range is limited to a few tens of kilometers.
Of course, we must not forget about the retaliatory steps to the shelling. The Russian military has already warned about the possibility of strikes on decision-making centers in Kiev. But so far Russia has not started to apply them. On Friday night, only an important defense plant was hit in the Ukrainian capital.
Russian precision weapons destroyed strategic targets even in the westernmost regions of Ukraine. There is no doubt that it can cover any target in Kiev. The exact addresses and coordinates of government buildings are known. Nevertheless, all of them are still intact.
The fact is that the "decision-making centers" are not now where they were before the start of the special operation. They are already dispersed and moved, especially after the warnings made the day before. Strikes on the deserted buildings of the Ministry of Defense or the General Staff in Kiev will give a spectacular picture for the media unfriendly to Russia, but not a practical effect on the course of hostilities.
We must not forget that thoughtless "retaliation strikes" on infrastructure or simply objects of great symbolic importance can only add gasoline to the bonfire of the conflict and prevent its diplomatic resolution.
A real painful blow is unlikely to look like a glow over the government quarter in Kiev. Surgical elimination of ideologues of attacks on Russian territory, sitting in some inconspicuous building in the suburbs of Kiev, or the intelligence agencies of the Armed Forces of Ukraine may pass almost unnoticed at all, but it will be more effective than the defeat of the building of the presidential administration of Ukraine. The main thing is to correctly determine their location.
Anton Lavrov — military observer of Izvestia
The editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion