With much attention focused on new air
defense systems to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russian missile and
drone attacks, the Ukrainian military appears to have launched a missile
barrage of its own targeting Belgorod in western Russia. According to claims by
Russian state news agencies, the attacks left an undisclosed number of people
in the region, which borders Ukraine, killed or injured, with a rail line and
an ammunition dump being among the apparent targets.
Rail services in the Belgorod region
were suspended today after at least one missile — apparently a Ukrainian Tochka
series, or SS-21 Scarab tactical ballistic missile — came down on a line near
the town of Novyi Oskol. Pictures said to have been taken at the site of the
strike that has appeared on social media show obvious damage both to the track
and the overhead power lines. The photos also look to show the tail end of a
Tochka or Tochka-U missile.
It's unclear whether the missile was
intended to hit this rail infrastructure, and in the process degrade, even
temporarily shut down an important logistics route for the Russian military in
Ukraine, or whether it missed its intended target.
Wreckage of a Russian Tochka-U on
display in Kyiv, for comparison with the wreckage of an apparent Ukrainian
missile of this type seen in the Belgorod region:
The ammunition dump that was
reportedly struck was in the village of Oktyabrsky, where Russian state-owned
news agency RIA Novosti said there had been fatalities and injuries. It's not
clear what munitions may have been used in this instance. Russian authorities
blamed the explosion on Ukrainian “shelling” from over the border. This may
imply long-range artillery, including multiple rocket launchers, or it could
also have involved the Tochka. Oktyabrsky is only around five miles from the
border with Ukraine.
A map of the Belgorod region showing
the key areas where Ukrainian attacks have been reported in the last 24 hours.
Google Earth
Ukraine launching attacks on Russian
ammunition depots would certainly make sense, with the value of each such
storage site increasing day by day, amid indications that Russia is running low
on artillery shells and other heavy munitions needed to support their campaign
in Ukraine.
As for the Tochka, this has seen
sporadic use by both sides in the conflict so far, but the Ukrainian Armed
Forces are not thought to possess significant stocks of this weapon. According
to IISS, Ukraine possessed 90 of the launchers prior to the outbreak of the
latest conflict and an undisclosed number of missile rounds. The Cold War-era
system is fired from a road-mobile transporter-erector-launcher and can carry a
warhead of over 1,000 pounds to a range of 45 miles for the original Tochka or
75 miles for the improved Tochka-U.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional
governor of the Belgorod region, said Russian air defenses managed to shoot
down at least one missile, also near Novyi Oskol — again, the type was not
disclosed. The town is less than 60 miles north of the border with Ukraine,
which puts it within range of the Tochka missile and long-range 'suicide
drones.'
“Power lines are damaged. Trains are
temporarily suspended,” Gladkov said, on the Telegram messaging service, adding
that there were no casualties in Novyi Oskol.
Later the same day, videos posted to
social media suggested that further attacks were underway as night fell on the
Belgorod region. Unsubsubstantiated accounts suggest that these attacks have
targeted a thermal powerplant, resulting in power outages across the region.
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1580961130364534789?s=20&t=s3yK1XddBVFMHSEIQFEsFw
https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1580965165448986624?s=20&t=s3yK1XddBVFMHSEIQFEsFw
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1580969286038061056?s=20&t=s3yK1XddBVFMHSEIQFEsFw
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1580986393123491840?s=20&t=vOLs0zJA1k3Hl4afPCJJEw
So far, there has been no independent
confirmation of the official Russian statements, but the evidence is
increasingly pointing to a sustained campaign.
The latest apparent Ukrainian attacks
seem to continue a trend of targeting the Belgorod region, which has seen a
string of unexplained explosions and fires as well as outright attacks.
Yesterday, October 13, Gladkov, blamed Ukrainian shells for hitting the top
floor of a 16-story apartment block in the city of Belgorod, the region’s
administrative hub, which is around 20 miles from the border. He said that no
one was hurt.
https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/status/1580515682412027904?s=20&t=BYX-FGj7l_9jx5KoYfqFug
https://twitter.com/CrimeaUA1/status/1580655788724740096?s=20&t=BYX-FGj7l_9jx5KoYfqFug
Gladkov also said that an ammunition
dump near Belgorod city and a border post in the frontier town of Shebekino had
been destroyed and that further damage had been inflicted on a school in a
village close to the border. There is so far no independent confirmation of
these claims, although videos posted to social media, including the one below,
purport to show the burning ammunition depot.
However, officials in Kyiv did respond
to the apartment block incident, claiming that the damage was the result of a
stray Russian missile. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on
Twitter that Russia had attempted to launch a missile toward the Ukrainian city
of Kharkiv but instead it hit the residential building.
That Kyiv has not yet made a statement
related to the incidents in the Belgorod region, other than attributing blame
to one of them to Russia, is not altogether surprising.
There has been a pattern of reported
attacks on objectives within Russia’s border regions since the Kremlin launched
its invasion on February 24. Among the targets that have apparently come under
attack are Russian fuel and ammunition stores.
Based on available imagery, attacks on
Russian infrastructure have involved suicide drones built from
remote-controlled planes available on Alibaba and apparently, at least in one
case also Mi-24 assault helicopters; it seems likely that some use has also
been made of high-speed target drones repurposed as cruise missiles. There have
also been cross-border special forces raids made by Ukrainian troops, which you
can read about in-depth here.
Tochka missiles have also been
implicated in previous allegations of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory.
In early July, Russian officials accused the Kyiv regime of attacking Belgorod
with these weapons, carrying submunitions warheads, and claimed to have shot
down three. These attacks were alleged to have killed at least five people and
destroyed numerous buildings. For its part, Russia, too, has apparently
deployed Tochka missiles with submunitions warheads.
Earlier in the conflict, Russian
officials attributed a series of blasts outside Belgorod city in late March to
a Ukrainian attack involving three Tochka-Us and said that these injured eight
and destroyed several vehicles.
And, in one of the very first alleged
incidents of Ukraine striking back on Russian territory, on the second day of
the war, there were unconfirmed reports that an apparent attack on the Russian
airbase at Millerovo was the result of a Tochka missile strike. The details of
what happened at the airbase remain murky and it remains possible that the
incident was an accidental fire rather than a Ukrainian strike.
A Ukrainian Armed Forces Tochka-U
tactical ballistic missile during a rehearsal for the Independence Day military
parade in Kyiv, 2018. VoidWanderer/Wikimedia Commons
In some cases, Ukrainian officials
have offered oblique comments that suggest that these incidents are legitimate
payback for Russian actions, or “karma,” but they have fallen short of claiming
responsibility.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has
in the recent past said that he would be willing to use nuclear weapons to
defend Russia’s “territorial integrity.” This has led many to suggest that
Ukrainian actions on Ukrainian territory claimed by Russia could risk a nuclear
response by Moscow. But the Belgorod region sits firmly within Russian borders
and with no Ukrainian threat to invade Russia or occupy its territory, it
remains unclear exactly where Putin’s “red line” is, in this instance.
This article was originally published on msn.com
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