A Tuesday rocket raid may have knocked out three Russian radars.
Jun 12, 2024
VYACHESLAV ARGENBERG/HTTP://WWW.VASCOPLANET.COM PHOTO
In mid-May, the Ukrainian army launched a powerful barrage of 10 American-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets at a Russian base in Belbek outside Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.
The raid inflicted as much damage as Ukrainian planners could have realistically hoped for. Photos from the ground confirmed the two-ton ATACMS, each scattering hundreds of grenade-sized bomblets, destroyed a radar and two launchers from an S-400 air-defense battery. There were reports the rockets also damaged four warplanes at a nearby military airfield.
Belbek and Sevastopol are important bases for the Russian air force and what remains of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet, so it should come as no surprise that the Russians promptly replaced the wrecked components of the S-400, whose missiles range as far as 250 miles.
And like the punchline of an explosive joke, the Ukrainians bombarded the Belbek S-400 battery again on Tuesday.
Unspecified munitions—likely the same 190-mile-range M39A1 ATACMS that hit Belbek in May—rained down on the Belbek S-400 as well as a two other nearby air-defenses batteries: another S-400 as well as a shorter-ranged S-300.
“At least 10 ATACMS missiles were used in the strike,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported, “with the Russian air-defense system failing to intercept any of them.”
Two radars were destroyed, the Ukrainian defense ministry claimed—one each from an S-300 and S-400 battery. “Regarding the third radar, information is being clarified,” the ministry added. “The detonation of munitions was recorded in all three areas where the anti-aircraft missile systems were stationed.”
Belbek is becoming an attrition trap for the Russian air force’s best air-defense system. The Ukrainians hit fresh missile batteries roughly as fast as they can deploy. Prior to Tuesday, the Russians had lost two S-400 command posts, four radars and 16 launchers that the analysts at Oryx can confirm.
After Tuesday, the toll could be much higher. In all, it’s possible Ukrainian missile raids have destroyed parts of four or five S-400 batteries. Ironically, the S-400 was designed to have an anti-missile capability, but it obviously doesn’t work. Russia’s S-400s can’t defend nearby friendly forces—and they also can’t defend themselves.
The Russian air force has more than 50 S-400 batteries, so it’s not about to run out. But the batteries are useless to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine if they can’t survive Ukrainian rocket attacks. The more S-400s the Russians stage in Ukraine, the more S-400s they’re likely to lose.
Some Russian observers are worried that much worse attacks are coming. If the Ukrainians are following American strike doctrine, attacks on air-defense batteries come first. After that, “aviation based on the F-16 comes into play, under the wings of which there is a wide range of ammunition,” one Russian blogger noted in a missive translated by Estonian analyst War Translated.
The Ukrainian air force is getting 85 ex-European Lockheed Martin F-16s—and already has radar-homing missiles and precision glide-bombs for the F-16s to employ in combat.
The first F-16s—former Danish examples—should arrive in Ukraine any week now. Don’t be shocked if the nimble jets quickly launch for strikes on Russian bases in Crimea. Bases whose air-defenses have been steadily ground down by back-to-back barrages of ATACMS rockets.
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Sources:
1. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-110624
2. Ukrainian defense ministry: https://x.com/DefenceU/status/1800848351811731961
3. Oryx: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
4. War Translated: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1800935956872298950
“Ironically, the S-400 was designed to have an anti-missile capability, but it obviously doesn’t work. Russia’s S-400s can’t defend nearby friendly forces—and they also can’t defend themselves.”
No, they don’t work as advertised. Bat virus land and Turkey must be broiling with anger. ILMAO.
The Ukrainian tactic does make me wonder; will they continue this cat and mouse game until the roaches run out of air defense systems, or stop putting them in Crimea, or will the AFU destroy the bridge soon to stop further deliveries of air defense systems?
I don’t know, but it seems convenient to let the ruSSians keep bringing those systems close so they can be destroyed more easily. 🙂
Either way seems to be a win for Ukraine.
What’s the old phrase? If an enemy is killing himself, stay out of it.
Maybe that is the current Cossack tactic. Hell, they keep moving their $500 million S400s into theater to get destroyed so let them go. Maybe destroy the bridge after the monkeys finally figure it out.
That would be the perfect strategy if it weren’t for the small detail that the bridge allows lots of supplies to be delivered to the cockroaches in Ukraine.
RuSSkies are becoming desperate:
“Budanov: Russia has deployed the S-500 SAM in Crimea”
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/budanov-russia-has-deployed-the-s-500-sam-in-crimea/
This could become yet another huge embarassment, exposing another multi-billion-dollar corruption scheme. Given the greed of Russian oligarchs, odds are quite high that the advertised capabilities have no relation to reality, me thinks. 😈
Placing something that has hardly been tested, in Crimea, smacks of desperation. If the new wonder weapon gets destroyed by ATACM’s it will hardly increase sales.
Yeah, F1, that the RuSSkies are going all in now is a huge gamble that may result in the ruin of their air defence industry. Maybe they hope that the hype about the S-500 will impress the AFU so much that the ATACMS strikes are suspended? 😁
The hype of all the other wonder weapons has been destroyed by Ukraine, so this one won’t worry them too much. You know it must be desperation if they are withdrawing air defences that are protecting Moscow.
Ukrainian intelligence should spread the message “Crimea is more important for Putin than your security!” in Moscow. Let’s see if the arrogant residents like that! 😈
The arrogant residents are too brainwashed to believe anything coming from the West. They even blame the West for the Armenian reaction to russia stabbing them in the back.
That’s why this subversive talking point should be spread by work of mouth, not by Western channels. If Moscovites hear this from other residents, they’ll take it for serious! And why not, after all, it happens to be the truth. 😈
I’m not sure. Konstantin from the Inside Russia youtube channel talks regularly to contacts in russia, and they don’t believe him when he says russia is going down the pan.
Hmm, ok, maybe the message has to be presented as a conspiracy theory that connects with existing memes. Like, “corrupt generals have withdrawn S-500 from Moscow in order to safeguard their investments in Crimea!” 😈
I can’t wait to see the first report of this system also going up in smoke.