The Ukrainians are making with this diversion, which was revealed on Wednesday by The Washington Post, employing a war tactic that other armies also successfully employed. For example, in 1991 during the Gulf War, Iraq placed fake launchers for the dreaded Scud missile in the desert, followed by American fighter pilots. Serbia caught NATO pilots in 1998, during the Kosovo war, with wooden tanks ‘hidden’ under camouflage netting.
With the fake Himars, the Ukrainian generals are cleverly capitalizing on the Russian High Command’s concerns about the destructive power of the missile system. The Himars missiles, which can destroy Russian munitions and petrol depots and command centers within 70 kilometers with deadly precision, are blamed for the heavy Russian losses.
Since the Himars came on the scene in June, Ukraine is said to have destroyed more than 50 key targets behind Russian lines. Kyiv has also been using the missiles, which are guided to their target by GPS, in southern Kherson since July to counterattack. For example, three strategically located bridges over the Dnieper River were knocked out to isolate the Russians at Kherson.
Hunting on the Himars
“Destroy, with high priority, the long-range missiles and artillery deployed by the Ukrainian forces,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu told the army in July. Artillery units and the Air Force are now continuously chasing the 16 Himars batteries supplied by the US. Moscow and the Russian media regularly report that a Himars system has been destroyed.
But if the Ukrainians are to be believed, the Russians fired expensive Kalibr cruise missiles at wooden Himars models from ships in the Black Sea. At least ten Kalibrs were allegedly fired by the Russian army at the replicas in just a few weeks, a Ukrainian official told the newspaper. Since then, Kyiv has expanded the deception operation. Russia has never disclosed how much a Calibr costs. But the comparable, most widely used American cruise missile, the Tomahawk, costs about $2 million.
The hope is that the Russians, already struggling with a shortage of high-tech weapons, squander even more of their advanced weaponry. Russian artillery units are constantly sending reconnaissance drones into the sky in search of Ukrainian units. In addition to the Himars systems, the Russians are also hunting the 126 American M777 howitzers that Ukraine also successfully deploys in combat.
“If a drone sees such a system,” a Ukrainian official says of the wooden Himars, “it looks like a very important target.” The drone footage that sees the missile ships in the Black Sea is then used to fire the Kalibr cruise missiles. Incidentally, Moscow is also not averse to the use of fake weapons. The Russian army has been using full-size inflatable fighter planes for years to deceive enemies and intelligence services.