Ukraine strike on Russian air-defense unit shows impact of new weapons from West

Smoke rises in the sky after shelling at the frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the Donbas region, Ukraine July 12, 2022 (Photo; Reuters)
Smoke rises in the sky after shelling at the frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the Donbas region, Ukraine July 12, 2022 (Photo; Reuters)

Summary

Strike is Ukraine’s latest on high-value targets since Himars began arriving from the US last month

Ukrainian forces struck an air-defense system in Russian-occupied territory in the east of the country late Tuesday, in the latest sign of how long-range artillery sent by the West is shifting the war’s calculus.

Russian state news agencies reported that Ukrainian forces had launched a strike on an air-defense system protecting the skies over Luhansk, the capital of one of two Russian-created statelets in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area.

The strike is the latest in a series that Ukraine has conducted against high-value targets such as ammunition depots and command posts since multiple-launch rocket systems known as Himars began arriving from the U.S. last month.

“The occupiers have already felt very well what modern artillery is, and they will not have a safe rear anywhere on our land," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address overnight.

Footage posted on social media by residents of Luhansk late Tuesday showed a large explosion. Russian military correspondents said on social media that an ammunition dump in Luhansk’s industrial area had been hit.

“The armed forces of Ukraine launched a massive attack on the military air-defense unit, which ensures the security of the city of Luhansk," said Andriy Marochko, a spokesman for the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic people’s militia.

The Luhansk People’s Republic later said nine missiles had been fired at Luhansk from American-made Himars.

Russian forces claimed control over the whole of the Luhansk region earlier this month after weeks of grinding battle that has taken a heavy toll on both sides.

Serhiy Haidai, the exiled governor of Luhansk, said strikes on Russian ammunition depots had disrupted supplies, noting an increase in the activity of Russian subversion and reconnaissance groups probing Ukrainian lines for weak spots.

At the same time, Russia’s military has stepped up missile strikes on positions far from the front lines.

The death toll from a Russian strike on a residential building in Chasiv Yar over the weekend rose to 47, including a child, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office. Nine people were pulled out of the rubble alive, he said.

Russian troops shelled the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk overnight using multiple-launch rocket systems, according to Ukrainian official Valentyn Reznichenko.

Since Russia took over Luhansk, it has targeted the Donetsk region, part of which is already controlled by Russia and separatist forces. Capturing the rest of the region would give Moscow full control of the Donbas area, which the Kremlin made its priority after pulling its forces out of central Ukraine in late March.

“In Donbas, offensive attempts do not stop, the situation there does not get easier, and the losses do not get smaller," Mr. Zelensky said.

The Russia-backed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, said Wednesday that Russian and separatist forces were progressing toward the towns of Siversk and Soledar, according to Russian state news agency TASS. The towns lie between Severodonetsk, which Russia captured late last month, and the city of Slovyansk, which is one of Moscow’s next targets, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Mr. Pushilin also said that more than 100 cases of captured Ukrainian fighters are ready to be brought to court. Some of the cases would be heard by a court, others by tribunal, he said.

Last month, a court in the Donetsk People’s Republic sentenced three foreign fighters—two from the U.K., both of whom had lived for years in Ukraine before the conflict, and one from Morocco, who has Ukrainian nationality—to death, accusing them of working as mercenaries.

Mr. Pushilin said that the three men—Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner of the U.K. and Morocco-born Brahim Saadoun—had appealed their sentences but would face death by firing squad if their appeals are turned down.

 

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