1. Loss of the Moskva
Blame, humiliation, military miss of size. These qualifications were discussed on Thursday after it became clear that one of Russia’s most important naval ships, the Moskva, had been lost. The US confirms, reports The Washington Postwhich Moscow still refuses to admit: that the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet has indeed been the target of a Ukrainian attack.
The ease with which the Moskva and other ships operated so close to the Ukrainian coast, just 100 kilometers away, shows once again how the Russians underestimated the Ukrainians. Kyiv had no foreign anti-ship missiles, the Russians must have thought, and the Ukrainian cruise missile Neptune was not seen as a threat. Moreover, the Black Sea Fleet had the imposing Moskva, the air defense ship that was supposed to protect other ships?
“The Moskva was able to sit back and create an air defense for the rest of the fleet,” said naval expert Sidharth Kaushal of the British military think tank Rusi about the warship’s strength – on paper – on paper. But the Moskva, which also acted as a command ship for the fleet’s military operations, couldn’t even protect itself.
Big consequences
The consequences are huge. The Russians can now forget about an amphibious landing to take the important port city of Odessa. The landing ships are too vulnerable to another Ukrainian attack. The warships that Russia has used to bombard Ukraine with Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea now have to operate at a greater distance to stay out of range of the Neptunes.
An alternative is firing from the Caspian Sea, which has also happened since 2015 in the Russian attacks on IS targets in Syria. But Moscow cannot compensate for the loss of the image of the Moskva as a major threat at sea. “These ships will completely neutralize the US fleet of aircraft carriers,” a Russian admiral once said of the Moskva and other Slava-class ships. In the Pentagon, after Thursday, they will be significantly less afraid of the Russian navy.
2. No ascendancy in the air
With the approaching offensive in eastern Ukraine to take the Donbas, air support becomes very important. Much battle will be fought along a long frontline and in open ground. “The Battle of the Donbas will remind us of the Second World War, with large-scale operations, maneuvers, the involvement of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, artillery,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Koeleba recently warned.
The Russian units can then use support from combat helicopters or ground attack aircraft, such as the Su-24. However, after 51 days of war, the Russian air force still does not have full superiority in Ukrainian airspace. What the US managed to do in the Gulf Wars, among other things – elimination of the enemy air force and air defenses in the first days of the war – Russia is unable to do.
Also, the Russians must constantly be on the lookout for the danger posed by the thousands of surface-to-air missiles, such as the Stinger, which the West has supplied to Kyiv. As a result, the Russian fighter planes cannot operate freely. Tupolev bombers have been forced to fire cruise missiles from Russia.
Air Defense System
Last month it looked for a while that the Russians were finally getting the upper hand. The number of combat missions increased from over a hundred to about three hundred. But according to the US, which monitors Russian air operations with Boeing E-3 observers, it has now fallen back to its old, low level. The Ukrainian Air Force still manages to get its MiG-29s into the air, despite the deadly S-400 air defense system the Russians have at their disposal. Russian fighter pilots have to be constantly on the lookout for an outdated variant of this system, the S-300, which Ukraine has at its disposal.
To make matters worse, for the Russians, Slovakia has pledged additional S-300s to Kyiv. Moscow claimed this week that these S-300 batteries, which can shoot down planes up to 200 kilometers, had been destroyed in an airstrike. But Slovakia has denied this.
3. Let Zelensky operate freely
It is one of the greatest mysteries of the Ukraine war: why did the Russian army allow Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky to operate so freely from the first day of the war? With a blitzkrieg-like operation, the Russians tried to advance towards Kyiv in the first week of the invasion. Moscow surprised many with this because this invasion option was not seen as the most likely scenario, including by military experts. Way too risky, way too difficult.
The Russian generals thought otherwise. It was clear that Moscow was out for regime change: Zelensky had to quickly make way for a pro-Russian successor, after which victory could be proclaimed. After all, with the elimination of Zelensky, the greatest symbol of the Ukrainian resistance would have disappeared. End of war. Even the US then warned that Kyiv could fall in four to five days. But the blitzkrieg failed to materialize. The Russian advance stalled.
Strangely enough, an aerial component of this anti-Zelinsky campaign was missing. The presidential office in central Kyiv was not the target of a large-scale airstrike. With the accurate Kalibr cruise missile, the office could have been reduced to ashes in the first days, but this did not happen either. If you’re prepared as an invading army to destroy entire cities and fire on civilians, why leave the man alone who leads his army every day and comforts his people?
Symbol of resistance
As a result, the Ukrainian president gained confidence and became a worldwide symbol of heroic resistance. Zelensky, fearing for his safety in the early days, also began to defy the Russians. On the twelfth day of the invasion, he openly addressed the population from his office. The next morning even from the courtyard. Since then, the president has been sitting behind his desk every day, receiving world leaders. A sudden Russian cruise missile attack is now considered impossible.
In the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US faced the same problem. Early elimination of Saddam Hussein would mean a short war. But President George W. Bush had one problem: American presidents have been prevented by presidential decree from organizing such an operation. “No US government employee may engage in political assassination or conspire to commit political assassination,” President Ford stated in Executive Order 11905 in 1975. The occasion was a Congressional investigation into the CIA’s involvement in assassination plans against under others Fidel Castro.
This did not stop the Bush administration from bombarding the countless palaces of the Iraqi president at the start of the invasion. The palaces were to be used as military command centers and therefore, according to Washington, were a legitimate military target.