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There are growing signs that even with Russia’s wider battle strategy unknown, a substantial offensive in the east has already started. Russian forces, which dug in and brought in reinforcements after Ukrainian troops retook almost all of Kharkiv province and pushed into Luhansk last autumn, are now moving forward along a broad front west of the towns of Svatove and Kreminna. Western governments believe Russia is planning a major assault on Ukraine, possibly as early as next week before the 24 February anniversary of the launch of its full-scale invasion. Its main goal is believed to be to capture the Donbas region, including Luhansk, which Ukraine partly controls. The overnight barrage also came hours after the governor for the Luhansk region said Russia had launched a major offensive in eastern Ukraine and was trying to break through defences near the town of Kreminna. In the eastern Donbas, local people in the Ukrainian-controlled cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk said they could hear explosions.
Test flights
Both urban centres are close to Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months. Russian troops have been seeking to encircle the city as a prelude to an attack on Kramatorsk, a key Ukrainian military hub. There was no immediate reaction from Bucharest to the apparent violation of its airspace by Moscow. Russia's missile attacks have failed to produce the kind of decisive strategic effects that Moscow likely expected. U.S. defense officials assess that the Donbass region is now the Kremlin's top priority, but it's still too early to determine whether Russia has begun to limit its objectives, perhaps trying to split off that part of the country. That choice, the officials said, could indicate that Russia is running low on cheaper, reliable mid-range weapons and is having trouble replenishing its stockpiles due to sanctions and supply chain disruptions.
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Missile Threat is a product of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Russian naval forces launched long-range cruise missiles on Tuesday evening from the waters off Sevastopol, a port city in Russia-held Crimea, according to expert analysis of video verified by The Washington Post. Experts examined remnants of Kh-101 cruise missiles found in Kyiv, the capital, after an attack on Nov. 23 that knocked out electricity and shut down water systems in large areas of the country. One of the missiles was made this summer, and another was completed after September, markings on the weapons show, according to a report released by the investigators on Monday. On September 22, the Russian submarine Veliky Novgorod (B-268) fired an unknown number of Kalibr cruise missiles (SS-N-27/30A) from a submerged position at targets in Syria’s Idlib province.
Services
Yuri Ignat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force, said Kyiv tracked the rockets and had the opportunity to shoot them down over Romania and Moldova but did not do so. “The military understood the risks and threats to the population of a foreign state, so they did not do it right away,” Ignat said. Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said the Kalibr rockets crossed into Moldova at 10.18am local time on Friday.
Poland demands explanation after accusing Russia of violating its airspace - CNN
Poland demands explanation after accusing Russia of violating its airspace.
Posted: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Terminal supersonic flight
Russia first used the SS-N-30A Kalibr missile in Syria in October 2015, when it launched 26 missiles from Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea, at forces fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The tightly cropped video first shows multiple large explosions in succession above a ship, while someone off camera counts, “First, second, third, fourth.” The video then cuts to a wider view of a sunset where the long tails of the eight missiles are visible. The findings are among the most recent by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. A small team of its researchers arrived in Kyiv just before the attack at the invitation of the Ukrainian security service. Target coordinates are fed into the missile before launch, and the initial flight phase is conducted under inertial guidance.
Service History
Just a couple days earlier, Russian state media had shown video of the military landing ship offloading armored vehicles and tanks at the port, which had been taken over by Russia. From the images available, officials believe that Ukraine destroyed the ship. Firing large numbers of inaccurate missiles could be intended to clutter air defenses while Russia uses its best missiles for high-value targets and key infrastructure. WASHINGTON — As Russian forces fire precision-guided weapons at military and civilian targets in Ukraine, officers in Ukraine’s security service working with private analysts have collected parts of the crashed missiles to unravel their enemy’s secrets.
How Russia Uses Low Tech in Its High-Tech Weapons
The Russian military hasn’t said how many missiles it has fired and how many are left, and there is no data to independently assess the state of the Russian arsenal. But it also shows that the weapons Russia is using to destroy Ukrainian towns and cities are often powered by Western innovation, despite sanctions imposed against Russia after it invaded Crimea in 2014. Those restrictions were intended to stop the shipment of high-tech items that could help Russia’s military abilities.
Kalibr (missile family)
Russia fired as many as 35 anti-aircraft guided missiles targeting the Kharkiv region in the east and the southern Zaporizhzhia region. The scale of the damage was being assessed on Friday, with parts of Kharkiv and other areas without power. Ukrainian air force updates about the missiles’ course during the night showed they flew to the Kyiv region first, then turned west toward Lviv.
Analysts say anti-aircraft missile technology is an area where North Korea could benefit from its deepening military cooperation with Russia, as the two countries align in the face of their separate, intensifying confrontations with the U.S. The United States and South Korea have accused North Korea of providing artillery shells and other equipment to Russia to help extend its warfighting in Ukraine. Photos released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency showed at least two missiles being fired off launcher trucks at a runway.
Russia often changes the route of their missiles and drones to find weak spots in Ukraine’s air defenses. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in years, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dialing up his weapons demonstrations, which have included more powerful missiles aimed at the U.S. mainland and U.S. targets in the Pacific. The United States, South Korea and Japan have responded by expanding their combined military training and sharpening their deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. assets. Like the rest of the country, Lviv suffered power outages when Russia fired hundreds missiles over the winter, aiming to destroy Ukraine’s energy system. However, the attacks in the city were not as frequent as in the capital Kyiv, and Thursday’s strike was a deep shock for many in the city. The Defense Department confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Russian military resupply ship Orsk while it was docked at the port of Berdyansk, in southern Ukraine.
The Novator Kalibr (Калибр, caliber), also referred to as 3M54-1 Kalibr, 3M14 Biryuza (Бирюза, turquoise), (NATO reporting name SS-N-27 Sizzler and SS-N-30A) is a family of Russian cruise missiles developed by NPO Novator (OKB-8). There are ship-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched versions of the missile, and variants for anti-ship, anti-submarine and land attack use. Some versions have a second propulsion stage that initiates a supersonic sprint in the terminal approach to the target, reducing the time that air defense systems have to react, while subsonic versions have greater range than the supersonic variants. The missile can carry a warhead weighing up to 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) of explosive or a thermonuclear warhead.
The 3M-14 or SS-N-30A cruise missile, commonly referred to as the Kalibr missile, can be fired from ships or submarines toward land targets. It can travel a maximum range of about 1,550 miles, according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project. Cruise missiles are among a growing collection of North Korean weapons designed to overwhelm regional missile defenses. They supplement the North’s vast lineup of ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at the continental United States. Two Russian cruise missiles have entered the airspace of Moldova and Romania, Ukraine has said, in the latest attack by Moscow on targets across the country.
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