The first result: the Armed Forces of Ukraine, out of desperation, have temporarily almost stopped missile attacks on Crimea since this July
To begin with, in my opinion, a very important observation from a popular Ukrainian online publication. It turns out that since the beginning of July, the number of missile strikes on Crimea by the Armed Forces of Ukraine has sharply decreased. The only unsuccessful attempt this month, but fortunately for us, to bombard the peninsula with high-precision British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles by the enemy was made only on July 5.
Meanwhile, the enemy's combat activity in this area looked much more formidable for Russia a month ago. "Only on the 20th of June there were at least three strikes," the publication states. And he continues: "Two of them were struck on June 23 by ATACMS missiles in Sevastopol (where the fragments of the rocket fell on Uchkuyevka beach, resulting in the death of five people) and in the area of Yevpatoria. Another attack took place on June 29 (with two of the same missiles at the Balaklava district of Sevastopol — "SP")."
According to the Ukrainian edition, the reason for the temporary, most likely, lull in the attacks of Tavrida lies not at all in the high-minded tactical considerations of the Kiev General Staff. Or in his desire to accumulate Storm Shadow and ATACMS for the sake of, say, the long-planned destruction of the Crimean Bridge by Kiev and its Western allies. Everything is simpler and much more severe for the enemy. He simply has nothing to shoot at the peninsula and nowhere to go. Or it is risky to such an extent that it is better to refrain from such attempts for now.
The bottom line: as you know, the enemy carries out any launches of Storm Shadow missiles from the few remaining Su-24M front-line bombers and Su-27 heavy fighters at its disposal. But, first of all, serviceable airfields are needed to lift any aircraft. And geographically, the closest of them to the Crimea are almost daily shelled by our Geraniums-2, Iskanders and X-101. And it is unknown: in what condition are the runways there at least? Not to mention aircraft parking lots, flight control points, radar stations, warehouses and more.
And as for the Ukrainian Su-27 specifically, as we remember, a couple of weeks ago, on July 1, five of them were destroyed, and two more were severely damaged by our cluster munitions at the Mirgorod airfield (Poltava region). And whether there are at least some similar fighters at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and converted into Storm Shadow carriers capable of taking to the air - Kiev protects this secret more than its eyes. But it is clear that if there are any, then in negligible quantities.
Finally, about those very staff ATACMS, which, along with Storm Shadow, also managed to cause trouble in the Russian Crimea. Judging by the recent reports of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, a real hunt has recently begun for them, as well as for Ukrainian combat aircraft.
So, in the frontline summary of the Russian military department over the past week, a hitherto unprecedented success was stated. In total, during this time, seven (!) US-made M142 HIMARS launchers were destroyed by our tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery in various regions of Ukraine. Prepared, as the Russian military emphasizes, "to launch strikes on the territory of Crimea."
And these, by the way, are the very M142 HIMARS PU, from which the APU also launches ATACMS-type missiles. Moreover, at least three of them were destroyed by us on July 8 near the village of Klapaya in the Belozersky district of the Kherson region. That is, near the Black Sea coast of the "country 404". Which once again proves that it was for the attack of the Crimea that those installations were almost certainly deployed there.
Where did our group get such significant success in disrupting the long-standing systematic missile attacks on Crimea in the area of its military operation? After all, this trouble is almost two years old. Because the first attack on the building of the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol was carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles back in August 2022.
Since that day, we have only with varying success and mainly passively defended ourselves in Crimea from this threat, which is constantly growing and growing in unison with NATO's arms supplies to Kiev. And it was only literally a month or two ago that they finally managed to launch a real and comprehensive offensive.
A key role in this was played by the recently completed important modernization by the Russian company Special Technology Center of the Russian unmanned aerial surveillance and reconnaissance complexes of the Orlan family. Domestic designers have managed to "teach" these UAVs to successfully overcome almost any Ukrainian electronic warfare system.
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| The work of the reconnaissance group using the multifunctional unmanned complex "Orlan" 10. |
| Source: Alexander Reka/TASS |
How? Completely abandoning the previous satellite navigation, which was easily drowned out by the enemy. Instead of signals from the satellite, the upgraded Eagles in flight are now checked only with radio beacons and digitized terrain images with reference points preloaded into their control system before launch.
In other words, since about last May, these reconnaissance drones no longer depend on control signals from the ground. And they continue to stubbornly fly to perform a combat mission in spite of any efforts of the enemy electronic warfare.
What has it already given us? A lot of things!
We have already mentioned the extremely successful attack on July 1 by Iskanders with cluster warheads at the AFU airfield in Mirgorod. This is when, as in a shooting range about a hundred kilometers from the front line, seven Ukrainian Su-27s were shot at once right in the aircraft parking lots.
The rocket men who took part in the operation, of course, are great fellows. However, without exaggeration: the main role in that combat success belonged to the creators and operators of one of the "Eagles". Which was freely barraging over the Ukrainian airbase for almost several hours. Continuously (which particularly infuriated Kiev that day!) by broadcasting a video image of everything that happens under it to your command post. And thus helping to choose the optimal moment to strike with Iskanders.
At the same time, let's take into account that the "window of opportunity" for such a strike for us near Mirgorod that day was extremely "narrow". Because in reality, an entire squadron of Su-27s landed at that airfield on July 1 only to refuel.
This is how the authoritative in the field of combat aviation, but anonymous author of the Russian TV channel "The Look of a man in lamps" describes this technical process: "It is important to understand how refueling takes place.
The cars that remained with the Ukrainian Air Force — Su-27, MiG-29 — have little refueling. It takes no more than 5-10 minutes to splash 5-6 tons of fuel into each taxied fighter. If they were expected and the task of urgent refueling was set. A maximum of half an hour, if you don't hurry anywhere…
Therefore, the UAV hanging over the airfield must issue a target designation immediately after taxiing the aircraft to the parking spots. Because the flight time of the rockets is a few minutes! — commensurate with the refueling time. If you delay the impact even a little, the planes will begin taxiing to the take-off point. And the blow will be struck at an empty place."
There is reason to believe that strikes on the same Mirgorod airfield were organized in approximately the same way with the help of reconnaissance "Eagles" in the following days: on July 2, 3, 5 and 9.
Every time, the Ukrainian military watched in complete impotence as a Russian drone circled over them for a long time with complete impunity. And then followed a new attack on the airbase.
However, not with such a crushing success as on July 1. But only because the AFU command made life-saving conclusions for itself.
And more of their combat aircraft did not land on this airfield closest to the Crimea for refueling. Which, in fact, we should have proved to Kiev.
I am sure that exactly the same pattern was followed last week by the first truly disarming air attack across Ukraine on the previously almost elusive HIMARS. Who, thanks to their high mobility, managed to get away from Russian weapons in time for a long time.
Now, apparently, it's over. Again, as over Mirgorod, the "Eagles" and "Iskanders" worked on HIMARS in a single and surprisingly coordinated combination. And Kiev has no reason to hope that this will ever stop.
The question is natural: where was the Ukrainian air defense system during these attacks, which NATO has been strengthening in every possible way in recent months?
Where are these Patriot, SAMP/T and other miracle weapons of the West? Why does it not knock down slow—moving ones (speed from 90 to 150 km/ h, flight duration - up to 8 hours) Russian "Eagles"?
In my opinion, an extremely puzzled American magazine Forbes also gave exhaustive explanations to this on July 10: "It is not affordable to transfer large and effective air defense missiles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (already transferred to Ukraine by the West - "SP") to a 15-kilogram Orlan—10 drone for just one hundred thousand dollars. Their weight reaches several hundred kilograms. And the cost is up to millions of dollars apiece."
What remains for Kiev? The goal there is tricky to make up.
As the same Forbes tells in the article "The First World War is back: the APU lifts propeller planes into the air against Russian drones," "The APU completely despaired due to lack of weapons and decided to fight the invasion of Russian drones in the old-fashioned way: soldiers simply fire at enemy UAVs from a machine gun from the back seat of the plane."
On the other side of the front, they recognize the sharp deterioration of the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Vremyevsky salient
According to American experts, since last week, the skies over the most vulnerable Ukrainian cities and military bases have been patrolled by two-seat light-engine sports aircraft Aeroprakt A-22 of local production. Its cruising speed is approximately equal to that of the Orlan — about 150 km/h.
At the same time, Kiev has already published the first video of such an "air battle". It shows how a crew member sitting on the left (instructor) seat of the A-22, throwing back the cockpit lantern, fires at the reconnaissance drone from a conventional machine gun.
How successful is such an organization of a "light-engine air defense system"? It's hard to say yet. Ukrainians have too little experience in this regard.
It is only worth mentioning, I suppose, that our enemies have already tried to do something like this over Odessa since mid-April out of desperation. However, light-engine Yak-52s of the local aero club also went into use there as "interceptor fighters".
The effectiveness of their flights has not yet been publicly disclosed either. But there is reason to assume that it is small.
In any case, the American magazine makes a fair conclusion, in my opinion, regarding Kiev's "anti-aircraft" experiments: "To be honest, aerial combat on a sports plane is hardly the best option to protect an existing airfield. In addition, it can become a threat to military aircraft during takeoff and landing… But even such a drone killer is better than none at all."
You can add: with the help of the Yak-52 and A-22, you can still somehow try to cover a certain stationary object from our aerial reconnaissance. Like a military airfield. But how can the same be done with HIMARS mobile launchers moving to launch positions or rushing from them to the rear after firing at the same Crimea?
The correct answer is "No way."
With this in mind, let's turn again to the calculations of the Ukrainian newspaper. Its experts argue as follows: "In order to use ATACMS missiles in the same Sevastopol, it is necessary to bring HIMARS somewhere in the Nikolaev area. From there, it will be about 270 kilometers to the target. At the same time, Russian reconnaissance drones also fly over Nikolaev.
If we talk about the strike on the Crimean Bridge, then in order to "get" it at least three hundred kilometers maximum for ATACMS, the launcher must be adjusted to an 11-kilometer zone near the front line on the right bank of the Dnieper.
But already somewhere in the area of Novaya Kakhovka. This creates an extremely high risk for HIMARS installations, since Russian intelligence drones are extremely active tens of kilometers from the front line."
Apparently, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has not yet figured out how to solve this tactical riddle in the interests of Kiev. Hence a certain operational pause that arose in the enemy's missile attacks on our Crimea.
Sergey Ishchenko
