- Last month, the Ukrainian military used drones to attack an airfield deep in Russia.
- Russia has since removed the aircraft from the area and dispersed them elsewhere.
- Western intelligence agencies say this will lead to further strain on Moscow’s aircrews.
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Russia has responded to a massive attack by Ukrainian military drones on a military base deep behind enemy lines, pulling dozens of aircraft away from the front lines, new Western sources said.
On April 27, the Ukrainian military fired dozens of attack drones at Kushchevskaya airfield and two oil refineries in southwestern Russia, possibly in an attempt to disrupt Moscow’s highly destructive glide bomb campaign. It will be done. The attack marked Kiev’s latest long-range attack targeting military and energy facilities in Moscow.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the attack on Krzychevskaya “may have caused around 40 aircraft of various types to be removed from the area and dispersed to multiple airfields away from the front line” over the past week. .
“The impact of this is unlikely to be immediately obvious or dramatic. However, Ukraine has already demonstrated the ability to strike much deeper into Russia than these dispersed points,” the UK said. wrote in Friday’s article. Intelligence updates. However, he did not say where these new locations would be located.
“Forcing such dispersion measures means the time of sorties must be extended to maintain the same persistence over the battlespace,” the intelligence update continued. “This requires more fuel, increasing costs and increasing strain on crews.”
Such an outcome would be a victory for Ukraine as it seeks to ease the strain on its frontline forces and air defenses, which have been under increasing stress in recent months due to the lack of vital interceptor missiles.
The attacks in late April are not the first time Russia has been forced to relocate vulnerable assets due to a barrage of Ukrainian attacks. Kiev’s exploding fleet of naval drones wreaked havoc on Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet, forcing warships to disperse from their headquarters in occupied Crimea to port cities along Russia’s southwest coast.
Kushchevskaya Airfield is home to Russian Su-34 and Su-35 fighters. It was not immediately clear whether any aircraft were hit in last weekend’s attack, but Britain’s Ministry of Defense, citing open source video footage, said a number of glide bomb kits were destroyed at a storage facility.
The glide bomb has flight control surfaces that allow it to soar toward its target rather than free fall, making it a type of standoff weapon, meaning Russian aircraft can launch the bomb at distances beyond the range of Ukraine’s air defense systems.
These munitions have short flight times, small radar signatures, and non-ballistic trajectories, making them difficult to intercept. The only way to defeat the threat is to destroy or slam Moscow’s warplanes into the ground before they can release their weapons.
Glide bombs have long been a headache for Ukraine, but Russia has increased its reliance on them this year to strike the front and rear positions of Kiev’s ground forces with devastating effect. There is. experts warn These munitions could play a key role in supporting Moscow’s ground operations in the coming months.
Even before the Krzychevskaya attack, Ukraine had been trying to attack Russian air bases to quell the glide bomb threat. In April, for example, Kiev launched a number of drones at Morozovsk Air Base, but the extent of the damage was ultimately unknown.