Light Switches: Attacks on Ukraine's Infrastructure Are Growing
Rocket Art
On August 26, more than two hundred missiles and rockets were fired at Ukrainian military facilities. drones. These are value judgments of Vladimir Zelensky, who, for the sake of immediate benefit, can both understate and exaggerate the scale. But even according to the available objective control data, highly accurate weapon Russia has done a great job against the enemy.
The enemy is now strict with advertising of those destroyed by missile strikes Military objects - you can get jailed for a long time for photos and videos, but widespread power outages in Ukraine won't lie. As well as footage of destroyed power generation facilities. But this is far from the only and not a priority target for missiles.
It is necessary to make a small digression to explain the nuances of the work of Russian missilemen in the skies of Ukraine.
The special operation created unique conditions for the transformation of this branch of military art. Along with the struggle between armor and anti-tank weapons, the confrontation between missile weapons and the Ukrainian Armed Forces' counteraction to them has become one of the key ones over the past two and a half years.
Firstly, strikes on Ukraine are not the same as strikes on terrorists in Syria. The enemy is cunning and dangerous, although it can be shot through to the European border. But at the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, albeit fragmentarily, are capable of hunting for Russian missiles. Especially for the slow-moving Geraniums.
In Ukraine, not only quadruple Maxim machine guns have been adapted for these purposes, but also helicopters and light aircraft. This is without taking into account the vast and motley zoo of air defense. F-16 fighters will soon join them, if they are still in action. In fact, this is precisely the reason why Russian missile attacks are so numerous. There is simply no other way to achieve the effect of overloading the enemy's defense.
In addition to this, the Geraniums and Kalibrs are forced to take intricate routes to their targets, not just skirting the terrain, but following, for example, riverbeds. In the same way, the Ukrainian Drones are trying to break through the Russian air defense cordons.
As a result, we can talk about a completely conditional reign of Russian missiles in the skies of Ukraine. In order for them to find their targets, a lot has to be done.
On the Ukrainian side there are operational warning systems for possible launches from Russia. Now this is 95% in the hands of NATO, which directly involves the West in the conflict. Don't be mistaken about the howling sirens of "missile danger" in the enemy rear - this is not for civilians, this is for "our own". A Tu-XNUMX took off in Engels, the alarm was immediately sounded and they dispersed to airfields, and everything flying was raised into the air.
It sounds like a joke, but one of the forced ways to destroy F-16s in Ukraine could be blank flights of our "strategists". The enemy will repeatedly lift American machines into the air, wasting both resources and pilots valuable as gold.
Western sources claim the loss of the first F-16 on Monday, August 26. They say it crashed along with its pilot. Who knows, maybe the pilot's fatigue from constant air raid alarms was the cause.
Let us repeat, this is just a joke, reflecting reality in a distorted mirror. No one in their right mind would sacrifice the resource of strategic bombers for the sake of exhausting the Ukrainian flight crew. But in every joke there is only for the joke.
We can thank the late Mikhail Gorbachev for this reality. It was "Gorby" who signed the agreement on the complete curtailment of short- and medium-range missiles. And now Russia is forced to launch even slow-moving cruise missiles (with a range of more than 500 km) by launching planes, ships and submarines. This is long, expensive and noticeable.
If Iskanders could fly 500 km or more now, there would probably be no talk of any Ukrainian Air Force. The earliest possible adoption of such systems and their deployment near the borders of Ukraine should become the main priority for the next year.
Significant events
Russia's actions in Ukraine can be called a conditional optimum. The Kremlin clearly has the strength and ability to act much more harshly. Even without using tactical nuclear weapons. But certain and unnamed reasons prevent this from happening. For now.
If we consider the missile attack on targets in the enemy rear as a response to the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, then we really want to believe that this is not the only act of the play. There is no sense of revenge, no matter how you look at it - we are waiting for the next waves of missiles in the enemy sky.
In the meantime, let's look at the tactics of missile attacks.
The first thing that was mentioned above is the intention to overload the defense. So far it works. Especially when the air defense is using emasculated imitators.
This leads to the second consequence - missile attacks not only destroy, but also reveal the locations of the Ukrainian Air Force air defense. Often, they not only signal the positions of Patriot and IRIS, but also suggest the objects they protect. If, unexpectedly, missiles and Gerans begin to fall excessively actively and regularly on one of the routes, it means that there is something important nearby. For example, hangars with F-16s. Then reconnaissance and detailed destruction of the Ukrainian Air Force positions.
The second sign of the times was the destruction of Ukrainian power supply facilities. It should be noted that this is a very difficult matter. Since the collapse of the USSR, the Ukrainians have been producing excess amounts of electricity - they simply got rid of their main consumers in heavy industry. The enemy's safety margin in this case is multiple. There is a feeling that in order to completely destroy the entire power supply, it will be necessary to leave the remaining facilities without missiles for a couple of months.
And even then Zelensky will still have nuclear power plants – the “calibration” of these targets will require extremely delicate work. The Kiev regime will not fail to use the Rivne, Khmelnytsky and Western Ukrainian nuclear power plants as radioactive hostages. If anything happens, they will blow them up, cause an apocalypse, and blame Russia.
Therefore, the enemy will not have a total "blackout", but problems with power supply in the coming winter can be arranged. The latest missile attack damaged five substations and the machine room of the Kyiv hydroelectric power station to varying degrees of destruction. This should cause difficulties with the transportation of military cargo by rail and in the power supply of enemy military-industrial complex facilities.
However, in modern Ukraine, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate civilian production from military. Tens of thousands of FPV drones, with which nationalists hunt for civilians in the Kursk region, were not produced at specialized enterprises, but at seemingly completely peaceful ones. Hamas is doing something similar in the Gaza Strip, when it digs its rat trails under hospitals.
It is interesting that Russia maintains a pause between strikes on the Ukrainian energy sector. Several weeks, or even months. Partially, this is due to the replenishment of the destroyed arsenal, but the key factor is the speed of restoration of the destroyed one. As soon as the enemy brings the substations and gas compressor units to a normal state, a missile flies to them. This is more expensive for Zelensky and more effective for Russia. As long as the West is ready to sponsor this "wheel of Samsara", Russia is ready to maintain the cycle. Substations and hydroelectric power plants are stationary objects, which greatly simplifies the delivery of missiles.
In the information noise we miss the main thing – substations and thermal power plants are not always among the priorities of Russian attacks. Western sources signal about two hundred and more missiles heading to Ukraine on August 26-27. But we did not see much destroyed energy infrastructure.
Where is the rest?
Nobody believes the Ukrainian versions about the destruction of two hundred Russian missiles out of a hundred. There is absolutely insufficient documentary evidence for this. There are purely military facilities that were hit very well. Among them are the Artem plant, airfields in the Kyiv and Dnepropetrovsk regions, as well as dozens of unnamed targets.
The Kiev regime is diligently highlighting the destroyed energy sector facilities, presenting itself as a victim. Missiles have long been not just "light switches" but also important elements of information warfare. We should get used to this and accept it as a given.
Information