Withdrawing from one field to another, with the goal remaining the same, for example taking the second largest city Kharkiv would be just as good for the Russians, much like getting that southern land bridge.
Details are very limited at this time and are likely going to change as more information comes available, but reports indicate that a pair of Ukrainian Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters crossed low over the border into Russia early Friday morning and struck an oil storage facility in Belgorod. If these details stick, the pre-dawn strike is the riskiest direct attack on Russian interests outside Ukraine by Ukrainian forces since the war began five weeks ago — it would also seemingly be the first strike launched by manned aircraft against Russian territory since at least the Korean War.
Early Friday morning (Ukraine local time), videos began surfacing on social media showing blacked-out Mi-24s making rocket attack runs on a large oil storage facility in Belgorod, which lies not far beyond Ukraine's northeastern border. The oil storage tanks are seen exploding and a massive fire ensuing, one that appears to be still burning at this time.
According to The Moscow Times, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, wrote the following in a Telegram post:
"There was a fire at the petrol depot because of an airstrike carried out by two Ukrainian army helicopters, who entered Russian territory at a low altitude."
Belgorod sits roughly just 18 miles north of the border with Ukraine, but there are a huge amount of Russian forces arrayed between there and Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, which has been under assault from Russian forces since the war began. The possible fact that lowly Mi-24s were able to infiltrate Russia in such a heavily militarized area to make such a brazen attack would be a damning indictment of Russia's air defense capabilities. That area would be especially heavily populated by layers of air defense systems, including many short-range units that are specifically designed to target and engage low-flying helicopters in any conditions.
The helicopters involved in the raid would have been Soviet-era Mi-24 Hinds, which are operated by the Ukrainian Army Aviation. These aircraft saw extensive action during the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), in 2014 and 2015, sustaining several losses in the process. Nevertheless, after this campaign was wound down, the Ukrainian Army Aviation was left with four brigades of Mi-24s, dominated by the 30mm-cannon-armed Mi-24P Hind-F version. Western analysts put the total active Ukrainian Hind fleet at 34, prior to the latest hostilities.
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“In Iraq, where thousands of contractors were killed, the true human costs of the war were kept from the American public through the use of military contractors, whose deaths were not reported by the military or the media.”
More about plausible deniability for barbarism and brutality.
When Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin probably expected a quick battle and a quick win. Instead, we are now in the second month of a grinding, brutal fight. Thousands of civilians almost certainly have been killed (though there’s no precise count), Ukrainian cities have been leveled, and 4 million Ukrainians have poured into Europe, causing the greatest refugee crisis on the continent since World War II. Russia has also taken heavy losses, with as many as 40,000 of its soldiers killed, captured or wounded and at least seven Russian generals killed by Ukrainian forces — even as most major Ukrainian cities remain under Kyiv’s control. In what looked like an effort to save face, Russian military officials announced recently that they would shift strategy to refocus on “liberating” the eastern Donbas region.
So far, Western diplomacy and economic sanctions have failed to change Russia’s behavior. But a diplomatic effort between Ukraine and Russia may be showing some promise, even if very faint. On Tuesday in Istanbul, the sides met for a sixth time. Afterward, a Ukrainian 10-point plan laid out a set of compromises, including commitments from Ukraine that it would not join NATO, develop nuclear capabilities or host foreign military bases. In exchange, the plan envisions, Russia would allow for security guarantees for the protection of Ukrainian territory, including a NATO-type collective defense agreement between Ukraine and potential guarantor countries such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States.
The negotiations are still far from producing a real path forward, and much remains to be hammered out, including the status of Crimea and the Donbas, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said was “settled for good” (it’s not). There is more reason for skepticism than optimism: With Russia’s long track record of saying one thing and doing another, the negotiations could well be a smokescreen for its military forces to regroup and begin a renewed offensive. Indeed, in the days after the talks, Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s northern cities continued, despite Moscow’s promise to pull back, and civilians from the most affected areas still did not have access to secure humanitarian corridors. If there is a diplomatic solution in sight, Russia will have to show — rather than say — that it’s serious by stopping its brutal assaults.
When Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin probably expected a quick battle and a quick win. Instead, we are now in the second month of a grinding, brutal fight. Thousands of civilians almost certainly have been killed (though there’s no precise count), Ukrainian cities have been leveled, and 4 million Ukrainians have poured into Europe, causing the greatest refugee crisis on the continent since World War II. Russia has also taken heavy losses, with as many as 40,000 of its soldiers killed, captured or wounded and at least seven Russian generals killed by Ukrainian forces — even as most major Ukrainian cities remain under Kyiv’s control. In what looked like an effort to save face, Russian military officials announced recently that they would shift strategy to refocus on “liberating” the eastern Donbas region.
So far, Western diplomacy and economic sanctions have failed to change Russia’s behavior. But a diplomatic effort between Ukraine and Russia may be showing some promise, even if very faint. On Tuesday in Istanbul, the sides met for a sixth time. Afterward, a Ukrainian 10-point plan laid out a set of compromises, including commitments from Ukraine that it would not join NATO, develop nuclear capabilities or host foreign military bases. In exchange, the plan envisions, Russia would allow for security guarantees for the protection of Ukrainian territory, including a NATO-type collective defense agreement between Ukraine and potential guarantor countries such as Britain, China, Russia and the United States.
The negotiations are still far from producing a real path forward, and much remains to be hammered out, including the status of Crimea and the Donbas, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said was “settled for good” (it’s not). There is more reason for skepticism than optimism: With Russia’s long track record of saying one thing and doing another, the negotiations could well be a smokescreen for its military forces to regroup and begin a renewed offensive. Indeed, in the days after the talks, Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s northern cities continued, despite Moscow’s promise to pull back, and civilians from the most affected areas still did not have access to secure humanitarian corridors. If there is a diplomatic solution in sight, Russia will have to show — rather than say — that it’s serious by stopping its brutal assaults.
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