Ukraine takes the initiative in Crimea with spectacular attacks on Russian targets

In Crimea, deep behind the front in the land war, Ukraine has now fully taken the initiative, with a series of spectacular attacks on Russian command centers and other installations.

The headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was hit by at least two Ukrainian cruise missiles on Friday, which caused a major fire and the main building partly collapsed. There is speculation on social media that this includes the commander of the fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, would have died. The message has not been confirmed. It is almost certain that a number of senior officers were injured. Explosions were heard again in Sevastopol on Saturday morning.

Earlier that week, a reserve naval headquarters, further inland, was partly destroyed by cruise missiles. And on September 13, Russia lost a submarine and a landing ship when the dry dock in Sevastopol where they were being repaired was also hit by Ukrainian missiles.

The attacks, part of a series of complex operations in Crimea that began in mid-August, have a broader goal than just crippling Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Ukraine is thus systematically undermining the Russian defense of the peninsula as a whole and thus the logistical supply lines to the Russian side of the front, which are partly maintained by the Black Sea Fleet.

Front breakthrough

Ukraine also attacked two Russian military airfields last week, Saki and Belbek, both on the west coast of Crimea. Russian aircraft are stationed there for ground attacks and air defense. It is still unknown what damage was caused.

For example, the air strikes on Crimea ‘through the back door’ serve the Ukrainian counter-offensive aimed at liberating the peninsula occupied by Russia in 2014.

Ukraine is systematically undermining the Russian defense of Crimea and thus the logistical supply lines to the front

Major progress was made there on Friday, when Ukraine managed to break through the last of the three-layer Russian defense lines near Verbove, in the Zaporizhia region, with armored vehicles. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the American think tank that meticulously records the war, it is unclear how “definitive” this breakthrough is, but it is “an important sign of progress” for the Ukrainians.

‘Degrading’ Russian air defenses is a core objective of the Ukrainian attacks on Crimea. In recent weeks, two of the four Russian S-400 batteries were reportedly destroyed there. The S-400 is the most modern Russian air defense system and very expensive. Without the S-400, which was supposed to be able to destroy air targets at long range, gaps in coverage would arise.

Stealth missiles

In addition, Ukraine recently disabled a number of radar installations specifically aimed at both low-flying targets and targets with so-called stealthproperties, including the British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missile and the – almost identical – French Scalp, which are more difficult for radar to detect.

“Apart from the anti-aircraft batteries, Russia is losing crucial radar systems,” Can Kasapoglu, a defense expert at The Hudson Institute, a US security think tank, said on Wednesday in return for The Kyiv Independent. “These are expensive systems that are difficult to replace. Ukraine is taking the cake with these targets.”

Ukrainian cruise missiles are fired from the air by custom Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer fighter-bombers, each of which can carry two. It is essential for Ukraine that the Su-24s remain out of range of anti-aircraft defenses.

Cat and mouse game

The recent attacks show how Ukraine is playing a cat-and-mouse game with Russian air defenses. Attacks are built up in several waves, where timing and deception are of great importance. A Ukrainian intelligence source said, also in The Kyiv Independent, that an attack can start with ‘ordinary’ missiles or drones, which force the Russians to turn on their target search radars. These radars are then attacked with HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) missiles, which target the source of the radar signal. When the radars are disabled, Ukraine sends Storm Shadows through the resulting gap in the air defenses.

It is believed that Ukraine is also using a long-range missile of its own making in its attacks on Crimea and across the Russian border: a modified variant of the Neptunewith which it sank the cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, last year.

Atacms Delivery

The Neptune was developed partly because Western allies have negotiated restrictions on the use of their weapons against targets in Russia. The US has so far refused the delivery of long-range missiles of the Atacms type, for fear of (nuclear) escalation of the conflict. However, according to American media, President Biden has now decided on Ukraine to deliver “a small number” of Atacms in the coming weeks. According to TV channel NBC and The Wall Street Journal Biden reportedly said this to Zelensky during his visit to the White House last week.

The Atacms have a range of two hundred miles, almost double that of the Storm Shadow, and are fired from a mobile, Himars-style launcher rather than from a vulnerable aircraft. This enables Ukraine to attack strategic targets from a relatively safe distance. It is unknown which version of the Atacms this would be. It is speculated that the explosive charge consists of cluster munitions.

There is also speculation that Biden’s pledge also aims to persuade Germany to supply its Taurus missiles to Kyiv. This happened previously with German Leopard tanks, after America promised to supply a small number of its Abrams tanks to Ukraine.