The situation is a bit usual bust mostly unusual.

Sure, the politics surrounding this war – no matter where (i.e. from Moscow via Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, to London and Paris, and then all the way to Washington DC) – remains the ultimate mess. So, this part is ‘usual’.

But, it’s the way the War in Ukraine is waged the last few days that’s ‘unusual’. I’m ‘sitting’ here, for days already, ‘waiting’ for new reports about major Russian ground assaults, but… ‘crickets’: no ‘news’ are coming in. What is coming in are reports about fighting from 4-5-6 or more days ago (like when the 92^nd Assault massacred an entire Russian mechanised assault group, destroying some 16 tanks and BMPs, and cuddling some 100+ orcs in the Klishchivka area). Indeed, after weeks of intensive activity and almost non-stop fighting, it’s relatively quiet.

Sure, there is fighting going on – for example: the Russians continue trying to approach Berdychi, Orlivka, and Tonenke (which now seems to bear the brunt of Russian assaults), all west of Avdiivka – but: there are very few ‘big style’ assaults on the ground. Instead, the mass of reports is about glide-bomb attacks, rocketing and shelling.

For example.

Sumy. multiple villages along the border have been targeted the last few days. The town of Sumy too: two Shaheds smashed apartment buildings there, on 6 March.

Chuguiv, east of Kharkiv, was heavily hit by multiple S-300 SAMs deployed as ballistic missiles. Numerous residential buildings were damaged.

Kupyansk was rocketed by a volley from BM-27 Uragan multiple rocket launcher. Again, numerous residential buildings were damaged: two people were killed. Multiple other Ukrainian places from this area were targeted by glide-bombs, too; Kysslivka and Borova, for example.

Further south, in the area from Serebrianka via Kremina down to Bakhmut, Russian air strikes were reported from Torske, Bilohorivka, Serebrianka, Hryhorivka, Ivanivske, Chasiv Yar, Klishchivka, Konstantynivka, Andriivka, Druzhba, Toretsk…  ZSU positions between Spirne and Rozdolivka – south of Siversk - were heavily hit by multiple rocket launchers, too.

If that is bad, the situation in the Avdiivka-Shakhtarsk area is even worse: Ocherretyne, Umanske, Tonenke, Krasnohorivka, Kostyantynivka, and Vuhledar (to name just a few) have all been targets of multiple glide-bombs and at least as many volleys from multiple rocket launchers. In this area, even places 10, 20, even 40 kilometres are heavily hit, too. See Pokrovsk (hit by four S-300s on 7 March), Kleban-Byk (hit by up to 4 UMPKs), Niu-York, Andriivka, Novoukrainka. This is also where the first confirmed hit on an Ukrainian M142 HIMARS launcher took place, four days ago.

To a certain degree, it is ‘logical’ this area is the worst-hit because multiple air bases in Russia – from Milerovo´, down to Rostov and Taganrog, and then Primorsko-Akhtarsk – are all relatively close, while Ukrainian air defences of this sector of the front are the weakest of all. And even if: the ‘all out’ effort by Ukrainian air defences to drive the VKS away was costly. Confirmed losses are including most of an entire S-300 SAM-site (including its fire-control radar), three old P-18 radars, at least one NASAMS launcher… and dozens of missiles…

Further west, Ukrainian positions in the Staromaiorske area are heavily hit by MPK and UMPK glide bombs, as are Robotyne on the frontline, and (already ruined by earlier air strikes) Mala Tokmachka, north of it.

The right bank of Dnipro is heavily rocketed and shelled, too – and that all the way from Bilenke Pershe, via Nikopol, down to Mykolaivka, Kherson (city and suburbs), and Olekandrivka on the coast.

Further west, the night from 7 to 8 March was another one of Shaheds. AFAIK, at least 18 were shot down in the Odesa area alone, at least two on approaches to Mykolaiv, while a single Kh-59 guided missile and several S-300s deployed as ballistic missiles have hit the Kirovohrad area.

With other words: the Russians are ‘letting Ukrainians feel’ their firepower, keeping them under growing pressure, and imposing attrition. Read: they are causing losses. RUMINT has it that more than 20 Ukrainian troops are killed by attacks like listed above – every single day. More than 50 are wounded. Whatever the PSU might have managed with all of its claims for Russian fighter-bombers shot down, since 15 February, there’s no crisis on the other side: on the contrary, Ukrainians are reporting to have been hit by over 100 glide bombs yesterday alone. The number is likely to increase in the coming days, because the Russians have developed an UMPK-kit for their FAB-1500M-54 bombs – calibre 1500kg (including some 675kg of high explosives).

Currently unclear is what aircraft are used to deploy such heft weapons. As far as I know, a Su-34 can carry at least one (on a hardpoint under the centreline, in the ‘tunnel’ between its engine nacelles). However, some think that UMPKs with FAB-1500M-54s are actually deployed by Tu-22M-3 bombers. Certain is only that videos have appeared showing the terminal dive of at least one such glide bomb.

…which in turn is making it clear that the expansion of Ukrainian air defences - and its total and durable effectiveness - still has a long way to go.

The Keystone Cops in Moscow have released a video showing what they first claimed was a hit on a column of vehicles including a number of vehicles related to the S-300 surface-to-air missile system (would be ‘SA-10 Grumble’, in ASCC/NATO nomenclature).

Subsequently, this was ‘upgraded’ to ‘Patriot SAM-system’.

The video can be found, for example, here: https://t.me/voenacher/62210

Now, what can be seen on the video is a column of four trucks that appear to be of the same type, together with a number of smaller, miscelaneous vehicles:

It is possible that at least the two or three trucks in the centre were carrying launchers.

Moments later, the entire column was obliterated by a single hit. The weapon reportedly scoring this hit was, according to the Russians, an Iskander (quasi-)ballistic missile (others claim ‘BM-30 Smerch’ multiple rocket launcher calibre 300mm):

An ‘after-action’ video appeared meanwhile, too, and here are few stills from it:

Now, I’m not 100% sure what was hit there, but it does look like this was an ECS and two or three M901 launchers from the MIM-104 SAM-system (or two launchers and an EPP vehicle carrying power generators), i.e. a part of a Patriot battalion (most important elements of which were described here).

What is surprising me is to see any kind of an Ukrainian column being hit while, de-facto, ‘on move’. This is something happening extremely rare. And, according to unofficial Russian sources, this column was hit while somewhere in the Serhiivka area, about 80km east/north-west from Donetsk.

Combined with the fact the Russians have found it ‘worth’ to target such a column with an Iskander missile (which, meanwhile, are very rare), does make me think this might have been one of elements of the 138th Air Defence Brigade, detected by Russian UAVs while re-deploying into its next firing position.

Of course, for the time being, this remains unconfirmed. We’ll have to wait and see if any additional details might be released - regardless by what side.

But, if this turns out to have been an element of one of Ukrainian-operated Patriot SAM-systems, it would make this an excellent example for ‘Russian SEAD’ (SEAD stands for ‘suppression of enemy air defences’): regardless how much ‘assessed’ as not doing that, the VKS is flying such operations. We just do not know about their effects because Ukrainians never confirm nor deny if anything is hit by Russian anti-radar missiles (which is good that way, because nobody wants to tell the Russians what of their tactics and weapons work, and what not). Foremost, the Russians are - nearly always - combining VKS operations with those of their GRU (military intelligence), artillery and UAVs.

Finally, it’s much easier - and quicker - to bring a single ‘transporter-erector-launcher’ (TEL) for an Iskander (or BM-30) into a suitable firing position, than to brief the crews and prepare an entire strike package of combat aircraft to do the job. Think, this is something ‘fans’ of ‘give F-16s to Ukraine’ should keep in mind, too.

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ADD-ONs

No.1

Two days ago, Ukrainian air force seems to have delivered a very precise strike on one of Russian forward headquarters. The area in question is not mentioned, though. In turn, yesterday late in teh afternoon the Russians claimed an Ukrainian MiG-29 shot down in the Pokrovsk area, about 60km east of Donetsk, and the video from which this still was taken seems to be confirming that claim:

(‘For the records’: the last Ukrainian MiG-29 was claimed by the Keystone Cops in Moscow on 5 March, but as shot down in the Mykolaiv area…. probably by their MiG-31s or Su-35s, using R-37M long-range air-to-air missiles.)

No.2

Ukrainians have knocked out one of Russian Buk/SA-17 TELARs.

No. 3

According to reports in the Russian social media, the Taganrog Air Base was hit by something (Ukrainian), the last night. At first they reported damage on one A-50 parked there for over a week: meanwhile, this has been ‘updated’ into ‘destroyed’.

If this is correct then, yes: according to my counting, the VKS is now down to just 6 or 7 A-50Us and A-100s.

The content is published with the permission of the author. First published here.

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