Ukraine War, 9 March 2023: Next Russian Air Strike
Early this morning, the VSRF and the VKS run a large-scale ballistic- and cruise-missile-strike on Ukraine.
R : https://pastelink.net/ucp97q7j
First air raid alert was at 02.20hrs local time: this was valid for all of central Ukraine, from Zhytomir to Odesa, and from Sumy to Zaporizhzhya. at 02.40hrs, it was expanded to western Ukraine, too.
AFAIK, the first wave of missiles hit home around 03.11hrs, when explosions were reported from Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Odesa. By 04.23, local authorities have confirmed that an energy infrastructure facility has been hit in the Odesa area. There followed strikes on infrastructure facilities in Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, and Kryvyi Rih — where at least one Kh-22 hit an unknown installation.
By 03.53hrs, the Zaporizhzhya NPP was completely cut off from the power grid. The last that is known about its state is that two reactors were shut down and 18 diesel generators were powered up to cover the plant’s needs (they can last 10 days).
The second wave arrived around 04.28hrs, when air defences were activated in the Kyiv Oblast. The Vydubychi district of the city was hit by at least one ballistic missile fired from the Kursk Oblast (indeed: some are claiming a deployment of a several Kh-47 Kinzhal supersonic missiles); an energy facility was hit in the Holosilvsky District, and heating cut off from around 40% of the city (the water supply, reportedly, is working normally, but might be disrupted on the upper floors of high-rise buildings).
Not sure at what time, but in Dnipropetrovsk, one was killed and two wounded as energy facilities and industrial enterprises were hit by Kh-22s.
Around 06.00hrs, several Kalibr cruise missiles were reported as underway along the border to Moldova, before turning north towards Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk. Around the same time, also a new wave of missiles approaching Odesa was reported, and then a Kh-22 hit something in Kryvyi Rih.
Zhitomir received at least two severe blows: all the electricity, water, and heating were disabled.
In the Zolochiv District of the Lviv Oblast, four people were killed by a missile that crashed into a residential area.
Kharkiv — which just recovered its network of street-lights, the last evening— was heavily hit, too: up to 15 missiles were fired at the city, of which up to 11 might have scored hits, leaving Kharkiv out of water and electricity.
By 06.37hrs, emergency power shut-downs were implemented in much of Ukraine and 15 trains were reported as delayed because of the air strike (5 for more than 1 hour, 10 for more than 30 minutes).
As of that time, Ukrainians claimed to have shot down 19 targets, including 18 missiles and 1 UAV. Nine missiles were shot down over Mykolaiv Oblast, 6 over Odesa, 2 over Kherson, and at least this one over Kyiv. Accordingly, this time the Russians came with Shaheds first, then followed up foremost with Kh-22s, and relatively few Kh-101s and Kh-59s. Subsequently, it became known that in Dnipropetrovsk, air defences claimed 7 missiles as shot down.
All-clear in the west was issued at 06.46, and all clear in southern, central, and northern oblasts between 07.34 and 07.56 hrs. By then, Kyiv reported the involvement of
15 Tu-95 bombers
7 Tu-22 bombers (all over the Sea of Azov)
3 warships of the Russian Navy
and a total of 81 cruise missiles and 8 UAVs.
The latter two categories should have included:
28 Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles
20 Kalibrs
6 Kh-22s
6 Kh-47 Kinzhals
8 Kh-31Ps
6 Kh-59s
13 S-300 SAMs fired in ballistic mode.
Notable is the deployment of 6 Kh-47s: so far, the Russians deployed perhaps three or four of these over 13 months (that’s at least confirmed cases: there are claims for about a dozen of releases), of which at least one malfunctioned. Despite quite some spending for this project, the assembly of Kh-47s remained very limited, and RUMINT has it that only about a dozen have been made operational by now.
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As of 09.00hrs this morning, the number of Ukrainian claims increased to 34 cruise missiles (apparently including 8 Kh-31Ps and Kh-59s) - one of these over the Chernihiv area - and 4 Shaheds shot down.
In turn, three TPPs were confirmed as damaged.
Mind: related information is still coming in, so might update this one during the day.
Amid general expectation of a ‘massive Russian air-, ballistic- and cruise missile strike on Ukraine’, tomorrow, on 24 February — the official ‘Ignorant Media’s Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine’ — let me act in similar fashion: I’ll ignore the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on 20 February 2014 (because, you know, there are ‘some contradictions and inherent problems’ with that date, at least in the West) and go over to the topic: air warfare.
AIR WAR
Many consider aerial warfare for a discipline that’s the ‘most complex’ and ‘hardest’ to explain. Seemingly, that’s so because ‘aircraft do not hold the ground’. Indeed, they’re ‘here’ at one moment, and ‘kilometres away’ in the next…. Apparently, that’s a reason why some of biggest nonsense about this (air) war ‘must’ be published and circulated — whether in the social- or in the mainstream media. For example…
Some anonymous instance on Twitter has posted a few lines, essentially, announcing a big aerial offensive by the Russian Air Space Force (VKS). Correspondingly, it’s 1000’% sure: there will be a big Russian aerial offensive in the coming days. Which is why somebody in the West then countered with an explanation — always based on anonymous sources within the intelligence community, of course — that the VKS actually withdrew the mass of its aircraft to air bases 200+ kilometres away from Ukrainian borders…
Meanwhile, Russian military experts are falling over each other while explaining things like, ‘even in the conditions of air supremacy, attack aviation cannot carry out tasks ….(even) at the forefront’. At least in their case, culprit is promptly found: NATO. ‘Target designation by NATO’ is to blame for the VKS’ lack of effectiveness. Because, you know, there’s another ‘NATO advisor’ behind every second tree in Ukraine, and a ‘NATO radar’ behind every third building… actually, most of Russians aren’t sure any more if it’s more of NATO or Nazis one can find in Ukraine — so much so, they’ve joined that into ‘NAZZO’ an d the Keystone Cops in Moscow are claiming the destruction of another ‘US-made radar’ about every second day…
In the West, all the possible experts remain fascinated by ‘underwhelming performance’ of the VKS — because, you know, they still expect it to operate like US Air Force. Others have busied themselves with explanations how the VKS can’t and doesn’t run ‘SEAD-operations’ (stands for ‘suppression of enemy air defences’). Think, this is, so far, the best explanation for all the Zvezda-TV-released photos and videos of VKS Su-30SMs and Su-35S’ carrying Kh-31P anti-radar missiles, and why hardly any of them can be seen in operations against Ukraine without carrying wing-tip mounted Sorbtsiya or Khibny ECM-pods…
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