LONG RANGE WAR

Yesterday's long range warfare took both sides by surprise.
Ukraine managed to strike with drones, an airfield 700km away to the north and by all accounts, destroyed at least a pair of Backfire Tu-22M bombers. That they have this capability and that there were no defences has upset the Russian milblogers like little else.
Ukraine also used a single ballistic missile, type unknown, to strike Crimea, seemingly to test Russian air defences - the S400 complex is more than capable of dealing with up to twenty ballistic weapons in a single attack because they’re so predictable - another reason ATACMS is not necessarily the ideal weapon Ukraine thinks it is.
The disaster of the day was the tragic nature of the Russian attack in the theatre in Cherniv. Up to 100 died including many children.
This was the venue for an unapproved drone developers fair - the local authorities hadn’t been told about it and it had been organised by a low level politician attached to the Ministry of Defence.
Drone developers had been invited by her to show off their work. Rather than keep it low key, it was publicised the night before on local TV and the next day down came a Russian Iskander, wiping out some of Ukraine’s best drone designers. The woman who organised it didn’t comprehend her own stupidity until after the event. Russia used it to say that it was also full of NATO officers and they killed 60 of them, so it got plenty of traction on state media there. Cherniv is also just a stones throw from the Russian border.
Long range warfare and strikes on strategic Russian installations has clearly reached a new level of sophistication. Somewhere inside Russia there have to be people working for Ukrainian intelligence services.
The destruction of port facilities at Novorossysk, the optics factory destruction and the neighbouring shell refurbishment operation. Yesterday the advanced technologies research centre, that is trying to develop manufacturing to stop Russia being dependent on imported tech, just went up in smoke. And just to add to it a slap in the face to the FSB at Novorossysk where someone managed to get in to their car park and raised a huge Ukrainian flag on their flagpole.
And just to finish the day Ukraine managed to hit Berdyansk port with a missile. This is good as it’s still possible to do, but the downturn in Storm Shadow strikes following the Russian attacks on the Su-24 base is more than obvious. I’m guessing, but I don’t think there’s more than one operational, and there weren’t many more than 4-6 left in the first place serving with the 7th Bomber Wing. 17 had been confirmed destroyed/shot down out of 24 operational aircraft at the war’s start, 55 donor frames were scattered about Ukraine that could be used for parts.
How this is overcome I don’t immediately see a way forward. The missile is massive at 1.5 tons and it takes a certain size and type of aircraft to mount it and get it airborne. MiG-29, F-16, are too small. It can fit the Gripen because of its multi use design, Mirage 2000, Typhoon, Rafael and F-35. There’s still a long shot possibility that the U.K. could supply its recently retired early Typhoons, but they were considered obsolete, too expensive to update. It was cheaper to buy new models. Gripen is the only hope of restoring that capability longer term.
A mixed bag of events, militarily the loss of the Su-24’s is one of the biggest setbacks Ukrainian aviation has suffered in a while. They’d taken a superhuman effort to keep them flying in the first place.
But…Gripen is coming…

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
The Analyst
@DiDiAussie