Day 760 - Mar. 24 - Sevastopol hit again, Russia isn't so used to punch back, Sure all those NATO flight hours are benign
Hi guys!
We are in a proper Ukraine vs. Russia slugging match right now. For those of you who have been reading these reviews for a while, this means that the really most important development IMO is the basic fact that the good guys are trading blows with the bad guys on pretty much an equal basis.
If that is not a pretext to post an image of John Wayne applying some five-knuckle logic, then I don’t know what is. Hopefully FB won’t get all upset I grabbed an ancient movie still.
There are all manner of naysayers who would point out that it’s not at all clear how this leads directly to an end of the war or Russia pushed back in clear defeat. But considering that two years ago Russia vs. Ukraine was supposed to be an angry rhino vs. a sick kitten, this is really a pretty astounding turnaround.
Latest round of Ukrainian strikes vs. Sevastopol
Since this is most recent I start with it first. This is based on reports from both sides and where the evidence is limited I’ll note it. But in general, it seems pretty clear last night the Ukrainians ran a major cruise missile strike primarily against Russian naval targets around Sevastopol. They prepared even more diligently than usual, and I am personally convinced they had serious help from NATO. I’ll get into that later. But as of Sunday, morning, this appears to be what happened.
Mid-evening on Saturday at least five and possibly as many as fifteen Ukrainian cruise missile-carrying aircraft lifted off, flew to various points in the air space, and launched.
Russian air defenses appear not to have been able to interfere with the bombers but did try to defend against the missiles. They were partially successful.
However, some of the missiles got through. Before going on, it’s worth noting this took place in the face of, almost certainly, some of the most dense air defenses fielded anywhere by Russia.
- The most serious material damage seems to have hit a naval command and control center in central Sevastopol. The main targets logically would be the communications equipment connecting the staff officers inside the structure with warships and aircraft operating at least in the central and western half of the Black Sea. It appears almost certain this structure was hit with Storm Shadow/Scalp missiles two or three times. The building is badly damaged and the C3 equipment must have been as well, although we can only speculate as to how much. Something like 30–40 officers and sailors inside the building were killed. We can only speculate as to how many more were wounded.
Bottom line: Successful decapitation strike that will make Russian naval and air operations in the Black Sea less competent.
- There is strong evidence a troop headquarters for 810th Naval Infantry Brigade was hit and damaged as well. This is not a strategic objective and so not a typical target for a rare and expensive Storm Shadow. We can theorize that maybe the Russians had something besides a brigade headquarters there, or that the Ukrainians used something besides a Storm Shadow missile.
- There is some evidence, meaning the Ukrainian military claimed it, that the strikes damaged two Russian amphibious assault ships in Sevastopol harbor, to wit the Azov and the Yamal. I haven’t seen anything to corroborate those claims. On the other hand, historically, when the Ukrainian military has claimed damage to major Russian warships pretty much always those claims have ultimately proved true.
Bottom line: We can’t say this definitively, but probably this is another piece of evidence demonstrating that the Ukrainian strategy on Crimea is to isolate it and, probably, to knock down the Kerch Strait bridge only as the last step in that plan. Russian use of military ro/ro warships to move material into Crimea bypassing that bridge is well-documented. The Azov and Yamal are two of (I think) five or six of those ships left. What I think we are seeing is a calculated Ukrainian decision to expend very rare Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missiles on Russian naval transport, because of the overall strategic objective of isolating Crimea. If the ships really were hit the internet will tell us in the next day or two.
- There is some evidence, meaning a few Russian mil-bloggers mentioned it, that Ukrainian strikes also hit Belbek airfield by Sevastopol. According to those unconfirmed reports, one Su-27 fighter was badly damaged, two were slightly damaged, 34 air force personnel were killed, and some number more were wounded. A few reports say it was at least two Storm Shadow/Scalps.
Although much of that is speculative, it seems fairly certain that at least one goal with hitting Belbek, was to overload/distract the Russian air defense network so that the missiles responsible for the main strike — against the naval HQ and possibly the warships as well — go through.
As a foreshadowing to part about NATO, if all of that really looks to you like the Ukrainians had an excellent picture of what they were shooting at, it sure does to me as well.
Russia strikes back
This is not to imply the following is a Russian response to the latest round of Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol, actually the Russian stuff chronologically is earlier.
Although, as an aside, overnight Fri-Sat one of the Russian cruise missiles crossed into Polish/NATO air space for about a minute before flying on to try and blow up something around Lviv. We can all recall a time when anyone reading news like that would be terrified about World War Three.
My point with that heading is lead into a discussion on current Russian long-range bombardment strategy.
Over the past three days, the Russians have launched for them a lot of missiles, about 150, along with, very roughly, about 200 Shahed drones. Here’s a quick write-up with numbers:
As to the Russian tactics, again roughly speaking, it’s been like this:
- Mix cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones to complicate the job for Ukrainian air defense
- In general, try and hit energy infrastructure and particularly take down parts of the power grid
- There was a high-profile attack against the Dnipro hydroelectric dam near Zaporizhzhia
- Don’t try and hit everything at once
- Rather, pick a section of the country and attempt to overwhelm that portion of the country’s air defenses
- In general, a strike package on a single night seems to be 25–35 precision-guided missiles of various types and 30 to 50 Shahed drones.
- The backbone of the strikes is Tu-95 turboprops and it appears the Russians can put about eight or ten into the air at once. The next piece is Tu-160 naval strike jets, it looks like they can get about four of those in the air at a time. There are reports of MiG fighters dropping Kinzhal “hypersonic” missiles but they’re unconfirmed and in any case infrequent. All in all the bulk of these strikes are coming from bomber drops above central Russia around Saratov or over the Caspian Sea.
- There is some evidence that the Rusians are using Iskander surface-to-surface missiles as the main strike weapon because they are ballistic and very difficult to intercept, and possibly also because it’s harder for the Ukrainians to keep track of ground launch systems (again, this is foreshadowing NATO)
- Where possible the Russians are augmenting the long-range strikes with shorter-range systems that are inaccurate but still cause damage to civilian structures and overtax Ukrainain air defenses. In simple terms this is S-300 anti-aircraft missiles used in ground targeting mode, against the cities Kharkiv and Kherson.
- For practical purposes, the Russian navy isn’t even trying to help, which is understandable as many of their missile launch ships are sunk and the remainder every time they leave port risk being hunted down and targeted by the Ukrainians.
As to effects:
- The attack on the hydroelectric dam took down power in some areas and damaged transmission lines, but once again we saw that the dam itself is a much tougher target, and what the Russians managed to push through Ukrainian defenses caused surface damage but did little against the dam’s structural integrity. To be fair, it’s not clear the Russians were trying to break the dam. The takeaway is that given the number of munitions the Russians seem to have available, and Ukrainian air defenses, it’s going to be very difficult for the Russians to break the dam and flood everything downstream. But if they really tried, were willing to risk aircraft and take losses, it might be possible. But with missiles, probably not.
- They took down power in some sections of Kharkiv for more than a day,
- They took down power in some sections of Dnipro for about a day, I think
- Attacks against power infrastructure in Krivoi Rih, Kyiv and Lviv caused some damage but the lights basically stayed on there
As to what the Russian strategy is, I will avoid taking the cheap shot and just saying it isn’t strategy, it’s institutional inertia and an entire national military more willing to internalize lying and pretending about results, than an actual plan that took a look at the situation soberly and incorporated facts.
What I guess the Kremlin thinking is, at least in terms of what they’re telling each other, is that the top priority is damaging Ukrainian military manufacturing capacity, and that where possible continued browbeating Ukrainian civilians supports the strategy of trying to convince Ukraine’s allies that resistance to mighty Russia is futile and will only lead to more death and destruction.
The thing is, the Ukrainians also have plans of their own
This is really the big change that I see. It’s very clear the Ukrainians in January embarked on a campaign to degrade Russia’s ability to produce refined fossil fuel products, by hitting refineries.
It is clear the point is not to attack Russian oil exports directly. Were that the case, for instance, we would almost certainly have seen repeated attacks against pipeline infrastructure carrying Russian crude into Belarus and onwards into Europe. This the Ukrainians are studiously avoiding.
Instead, what the Ukrainians are clearly doing, is looking at map showing oil refineries in Russia, drawing a range circle out to about 1,000 kilometers, and then from time to time launching coveys of Ukraine-manufactured kamikaze drones aiming individual cracking towers in individual refineries.
There are energy industry smart guys among you that will correct this generalization, but in simple terms a cracking tower is the big tall network of pipes and gantries and power lines that takes crude oil and separates it into fuels and lubricants like gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, etc. The process is called “cracking”. The technology is far from new, and the structures are complicated and difficult to repair. I’ve included a confusing image to prove it, unless you really like chemistry.
An excellent write-up of the Ukrainian campaign against Russian cracking towers is in Ukrainska Pravda, in English:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/03/21/7447545/
The latest Ukrainian strike took place overnight Friday-Saturday. It was near Saratov, about 900 km inside Russia.
As another aside, remember how the Americans and the Germans were all strategic and clever and were going to keep the war under control and remove pretexts for the Kremlin to escalate, by never delivering long-range strike weapons to Ukraine? Well, it seems about 100 percent sure that these long-range attacks are all by Ukraine-manufactured drones, and of course the Ukrainians don’t have to ask anyone to launch those. This is a textbook example of “Beltway Navel Gazing”, i.e., the tendency of strategic decision-makers in the government institutions of a big powerful country, lacking the imagination to conceive that the foreign state whose actions the big country wants to dictate, is unlikely to just bow down, and much more likely alternate ways to advance its policies.
This is what you get when you have bureaucracies full of well-paid “experts” that spend a whole lot of their time telling each other how great their institutions are. But I digress.
Anyway, it’s well worth noting the Samara refinery got set on fire was one day before the Ukrainian air force hit Sevastopol. The Ukrainian central intelligence directorate has been taking credit for long-range drone strikes into Russia. This means — and surely someone even in the Kremlin must have recognized it — that not only are the Ukrainians not particularly bowed by Russian long-range strikes, the Ukrainians are swinging right back…and if one is honest (difficult inside the Kremlin, I know) it’s pretty hard to argue Russian firepower is more effective than Ukrainian firepower.
According to the energy business wires, already, Russian production of downstream petroleum products, nationwide, is degraded significantly, and you can find national production number estimates ranging from three to twelve percent. An article appeared in Financial Times I think the day before yesterday, followed by Washington Post, quoting once again “US government sources” inside the Biden administration attesting to having asked Kyiv to lay off the Russian energy industry attacks, because spiking worldwide fuel prices would damage the US economy and maybe get Donald Trump elected.
The Ukrainian government already has denied anyone told them to do anything, and that the oil refinery attack campaign will continue. With what? Well, the Ukrainians as it turns out have options, just because people in Washington think they can dictate what weapons the Ukrainians will have and use, the reality is different. Roughly speaking it took the Ukrainians 18 months to develop this capacity. Most of these drones are in production. Image attached.
I personally can’t see how the Russians can stop it. After WW2 the US Air Force did a big investigation into what worked and what didn’t when it came to bombing Germany, and hands down the conclusion was hitting German fuel production was by far the most efficient way to bomb a country. What’s more, dudes like Hermann Goering and Albert Speer said the same thing: once the Americans started degrading German fuel production capacity, and the Germans lost effective means of stopping the attacks, Germany was going to lose the war, full stop. Image of US B-24s over oil fields in Romania, in a very bloody 1943 attack. This leads me fairly smoothly I think to a gratuitous image of a P-51D fighter, which of course is the machine that made it safe for US bombers to get to air space above German oil refineries.
continued…
Stefan, I go to you for the best and most factual reporting on the war. More is always appreciated.
Thanks Stefan, I which you every success in your excellent reporting and in defeating those terrorist Russian scumbags.