Satellite images released on Thursday showed the destruction caused by an attack on a Russian airbase in Crimea, which suggests Kiev may have acquired a new long-range offensive capability with the potential to change the course of the war.
Images released by independent satellite company Planet Labs showed three nearly identical craters where buildings at the Russian airbase in Saki were hit with apparent precision. The base on the southwest coast of Crimea suffered extensive fire damage, with the charred bodies of at least eight wrecked warplanes clearly visible.
Russia denied the plane was damaged and said the explosions at the base on Tuesday were accidental.
Ukraine did not publicly take responsibility for the attack or say exactly how it was carried out.
“We are not officially confirming or denying anything; there are multiple scenarios of what could happen, bearing in mind that there are multiple blast epicenters at exactly the same time,” Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.
Western military experts said the scale of damage and the apparent precision of the attack suggest a powerful new capability with potentially significant consequences.
Image: via PLANET LABS PBC/REUTERS
Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, uses the peninsula as a base for its Black Sea fleet and as the main supply route for occupation forces occupying southern Ukraine, where Kiev is planning a counterattack in the coming weeks.
“I’m not an intelligence analyst, but it doesn’t look good,” said Mark Hertling, the former commander of US ground forces in Europe, on Twitter, along with an image of the destruction at the Russian base.
“I am. Very good,” replied retired US General Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency spy services.
The Institute for War Studies suggested that Ukrainian officials framed the offensive in Crimea as “the beginning of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south”, and that the Ukrainian army expects intense clashes in August and September that could decide the outcome of the next phase of the war. war “war”.
Exactly how the attack was carried out remained a mystery. It was reported that some Ukrainian officials suggested that the incident may have been sabotage by spies. But the nearly identical impact craters and simultaneous explosions seem to indicate that this was a volley of guns that could evade Russian defenses.
The base is well beyond the reach of advanced rockets that Western countries have so far admitted to sending to Ukraine, but within range of the more powerful versions that Kiev is seeking. Ukraine also has anti-ship missiles that could theoretically be used to hit ground targets.
Ukraine drove Russian forces from the capital, Kiev, in March, and from around Kharkov, the second largest city, in May. Russia later seized more territory in the east in major wars that killed thousands of soldiers on both sides in June.
Since then, the front lines have been largely stagnant, but Kyiv says it is preparing a major effort to recapture the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the main area captured since the February 24 invasion, which Moscow still holds.
source: Noticias
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