The spiral of ferocity that is enveloping Ukraine has a new protagonist: Russian aviation. Moscow tries to break the resistance with the most brutal tool: carpet bombing. On Sunday, the TV channel of the armed forces Zveda showed the planes taking off towards the front, highlighting the wings laden with bombs. The presenter pointed out that they can make an attack every fifty minutes. The effects are seen in the suburbs of Karkhiv, Sumy and the suburbs of Kiev: entire buildings devastated by the explosion of half-ton nose cones.
It is a terrible dejavu: the same pilots and the same aircraft have already completed the same mission over the cities of Syria. Since 2015 in less than three years they have carried out 121,000 raids against the neighborhoods of Aleppo and other urban centers in the hands of Assad’s opponents, forcing them to surrender. Thousands of people have died, including many women and children. But the international community did nothing to prevent this massacre. And now the Moscow flocks are repeating the same murderous script on Ukraine.
At this moment, the squadrons are raging on the areas closest to the Russian border where the advance has been blocked by the Ukrainian army. The whole area between Karkhiv and Sumy has become a trap for the divisions of the Guard, which suffer deadly losses. The defenders have sheltered their best means and gradually take out self-propelled artillery and rocket launchers. Assault teams traverse the woods and harass convoys of trucks and tanks, preventing supplies for the avant-gardes. Moscow’s answer comes from heaven.
As in Syria, the Sukhoi 24 Fencers and the more modern Sukhoi 30s fly at an altitude of four thousand meters: out of the range of the Stinger surface-to-air missiles used by Ukrainian infantry. From that safe distance, clusters of bombs rain down: some have incendiary warheads, others the monstrous thermobaric ogives that also kill those in shelters. In Karkhiv yesterday the besieged managed to use a more powerful missile battery than the Stingers and shot down one of the raiders. The Russian commands, however, are launching a targeted campaign against the anti-aircraft defenses and the Ukrainian aviation, targeting the bases in the western region near the Polish border with long-range cruises. Some of the fighter-bombers shown on Zveda TV had special missiles, designed to detect and destroy radars.
In this too, Moscow’s tactics are different from those of NATO. In Kosovo and Iraq, the western flocks approached only after dismantling the air defense network. And they could count on a large number of precision weapons, with satellite or laser guidance systems. Instead, the Russians almost exclusively use “free fall” bombs: 98 percent of the bombs thrown on Syria were of this type, inaccurate and devastating.
The fight at lower altitudes, on the other hand, is entrusted above all to helicopters and Sukhoi 25 armored aircraft, which attack by skimming the roofs of houses and often fall victim to Stinger missiles. On Monday, the new target of the Russian advance was seen at work on the town of Kryvyi Rih: a director aimed at closing in a pocket the Ukrainian troops to the left of the Dnieper River. To the south, however, the front line is still stationary at Mykolaiv, the bastion that protects Odessa from invasion. The resistance of Mariupol, where 200,000 inhabitants are trapped, keeps the troops busy to launch the offensive on the Black Sea.
On Sunday night, satellites spotted nearly sixty helicopters deployed at Cherson airport: a gathering that raised fears of a major sky operation to isolate Odessa. The Ukrainians hit this base with TB2 drones supplied by Turkey, then the Kiev command announced that an action by its special forces had destroyed thirty helicopters. A piece of news so far lacking in feedback.
In the waters in front of Odessa there have been at least two clashes. A Ukrainian missile lookout was reported to have been sunk, while a barrage of rockets would have set fire to a Russian patrol vessel belonging to the coastguards of the FSB secret service.
Information on the battle for the capital is uncertain. They fight in all the suburbs, with the use of any weapon by both sides: rockets, cannons, mortars. The pressure of the invaders seems concentrated on the eastern suburbs, the defenders struggle to keep the roads open and ensure vital supplies for the soldiers and the population. But everything makes you fear the worst.