From ‘The Analyst’ (Military & Strategic) X: MilStratOnX

HEAVY STRIKES INTO RUSSIAN TERRITORY

First I have to acknowledge that the Ukrainians themselves have announced that ten F-16 were delivered and are currently operating inside the country.
Pretty much a whole squadron, depending on how many you have in that grouping. Some countries it’s as few as 8 some as high as 12. Yesterday official video was released and deliberate fly-overs continued in Odesa and western Ukrainian cities, mostly as morale boosters.
The range and level of Ukrainian strikes against key Russian support targets in Luhansk and Donetsk continues whenever they can isolate a target of importance. Yesterday they hit several buildings around Luhansk that were linked to machinery repair for the Russian army, seemingly disguised and de-centralised. Ukrainian intelligence must have picked up a pattern of equipment moving from one site to another and they hit the entire complex of buildings. The resulting fires and explosions demonstrated they had clearly hit something of value, as smoke billowed skyward and fire raged.
The pressure on what’s left of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the supply effort for refuelling transports and warship in the Sea of Azov again reared its head.
In Sevastopol the Kilo class submarine that was damaged last year in a Storm Shadow attack, was sunk for good while undergoing repairs.
Last night the Azov port refuelling piers, the remaining operational fuel reserves tanks and much of the associated port complex used for transferring equipment along the coast and to Crimea, was hit in a massive series of attacks that have gone from simply disabling it to outright destruction. The oil tanks are ablaze as is the port itself.
Having gone from attacking the key parts of oil refineries- the cracking plant that separates the oil derivatives into different fuels, Ukraine has been concentrating on storage sites and tanks. Doing this becomes not only an incredibly difficult operation to put out for Russian fire services - they often can’t and have to leave it to burn out - but it can spread to other tanks in the right wind conditions. Either way such a fire usually means the whole site is unavailable and off line causing ever more problems for the refining industry. That in turn puts pressure on the Russian military and civil sectors as refined oil product like petrol and diesel prices soar at the pumps, and Russia is forced to buy in from neighbours.
Amusingly the devastated oil tanks in Azov were blamed by local authorities not on the visible and explosive Ukrainian drones but on ‘a cigarette thrown from a car window that ignited dry grass, setting an intense fire that spread into the oil depot’.
The loss of yet another repair site deep inside Luhansk has got to be a blow. Russian military vehicles are already far fewer that they were, their reckless and feckless use leading to such heavy losses. So when damaged units are repaired they contribute hugely to maintaining the war. And repairs matter even more when equipment gets scarcer. It’s unlikely just the buildings either - trained mechanics and stores of spares would have been destroyed too.
Each and every attack makes it more and more evident to Russians themselves that the war has come home. Their airspace is far from secure, their economy is under constant attack. Every day is more expense on things Russia has no money or means to easily fix.

So what do we know from the Ukrainian footage of the F-16?
First they were delivered with drop tanks that can carry an additional 360 litres each. The F-16 can carry as many as three, one under each wing and one under the centre line. That adds as much as 40 minutes of operating time, so overall could as much as double its operating range.
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