The Russians are REALLY lucky Ukrainians are not like Russians. Really damn lucky. Unlike the Russians, the Ukrainians have chosen not to hit civilian facilities but have instead focused their air borne assaults on critical Russian petrochemical refineries and military assets. The airborne assaults have slowly but surely reached an intense and seemingly relentless phase now … they just keep coming at the Russian mainland … in broad daylight even. And the Russians at this point can’t seem to stop these drones. Wait till Ukraine starts sending them in swarms and waves.
Yesterday’s broad daylight drone assault on the Tuapse Oil Refinery is particularly audacious as one would think that a critical industrial facility(top 10 and the only refinery on the Black Sea coast) located about 100 miles or so from the Summer palaces of not only Putin himself but most of the upper echelons of Russian society would be better protected. Perhaps Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus might reconsider the palace he currently has under construction in Sochi. Additionally, render the Tuapse refinery hors de combat and fuel supplies to the Russian garrison in Crimea and Southern Ukraine become seriously hampered.
The question now though is where is the vaunted Russian Air Defense? Have the Ukrainians successfully whittled away this advantage Russia enjoyed at the onset of the war? Crimea is now being hit regularly on daily basis. And today news that Ukraine has started hitting the Novorossiysk naval facilities in Russia proper(see link below). This facility was supposedly the safe haven for the Russian Black Sea fleet after they got chased out of Crimea. Ain’t no where safe.
kyivindependent.com/…
With the arrival of new Western supplies including ATACMS, which are already ravaging Russian air fields and supply depots, if there really are few to non-existent Russian Air Defenses, as were now seeing, the way could very well be opening up for Ukraine to do some serious air borne damage … like take down the Kerch Bridge. The Ukrainians set 2024 as the year to take down that illegal bridge. They just might do it.
No air defense just when Ukraine is about to field its new F-16s? Talk about time to get jiggy.