In just the last day, Russian missiles have slammed into locations in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rhi, Zaopzhshia, and Kharkiv. They’ve come down in towns in far western Ukraine like Ivano-Frankivsk. And, of course, they’ve hit a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, in mid-day, with over 1,000 shoppers inside. One of these missiles seems to have hit a factory that builds machine parts. That may be the closest that any of them have come to striking a military target.
Hitting civilian targets has never been an accident on the part of Russia. It wasn’t an accident when they bombed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of children were being sheltered. It wasn’t an accident when they bombed hospitals in Syria. It wasn’t an accident when they destroyed elementary schools in Chechnya. Russia has always, as part of their strategy, hit civilian targets, purely for the purpose of causing misery, anguish, and despair. Breaking the spirit of an opponent is seen as every bit as important as defeating them on the battlefield.
Kharkiv may be the place where it’s easiest to see the dedication the Russian military assigns to this effort. Early in the war, Russian forces attempted to take Kharkiv. When they did, they focused on striking the airport, a nearby military base, and the headquarters of the regional defense. But as Russia got pushed away from the city, and it became clear that Kharkiv would not be captured, Russia took a different tack. From the ring of towns and villages north of the city, they spent weeks shelling businesses and apartment buildings. Not at random, but systematically knocking out hospitals, schools, water treatment facilities, and most of all, homes.
When Ukraine surged out of Kharkiv two months ago and pushed Russian forces out of those nearby locations, the city was largely moved out of range for conventional artillery. Then Russia changed over to using MLRS systems and short range ballistic missiles to keep hitting Kharkiv. The cost of a dumb artillery shell is around $1,000. The cost of a missile in an MLRS is anywhere from $20,000 to $1 million. But those missiles have kept coming. So have the Iskander missiles, each of which costs around $10 million.
These missiles are hitting a city every day, causing civilian deaths, destroying buildings, and bringing with them a persistent fear. None of them are striking traditional military targets. This is not a city that’s under siege or about to be captured. Russia believes it’s worth millions each day, simply to terrorize Kharkiv. Multiply that by every other city, town, and village where Russian missiles arrived for no other reason than to ruin lives.
The death toll on the shopping mall attack is now at 20, but it can be expected to go higher. The resulting fire has now been extinguished and teams are searching through the rubble.
What can be done about this? This is what: according to the Associated Press, the United States is expected to include the NASAMS medium- to long-range air defense system. The system is actually made in Norway, but reports are that the U.S. will buy the system from Norway and ship it straight to Ukraine. There are additional reports that Ukrainian forces are already training to use NASAMS as soon as it arrives.
There are three generations of NASAMS systems, with both NASAMS 2 and NASAMS 3 still being in production. A complete NASAMS system is an extremely complicated system. It’s composed of a tactical control vehicle, a fire control vehicle, a vehicle that carries a set of supremely capable cameras, no less than eight Sentinel radars, and finally two launchers each of which carries six missiles. Those missiles, the AIM-120 AMRAAM, are capable of intercepting a target about 30-40km away, depending on the model. All those missiles can go up at once, if necessary, engaging a high number of simultaneous attacks.
The NASAMS 3 system includes a number of potential upgrades, including a completely different arrangement that includes tracked vehicles firing the IRIS-T SLS missile with a range of about 25km. It can handle as many as 72 targets simultaneously.
Presumably the deal has all been worked out, and those Ukrainian forces now being trained are matched with the systems they expect to see.
It’s not too much to say that the NASAMS can go a long way toward “closing the skies” over Ukrainian cities. But the big question may be this: How many cities? If the U.S. sends only a single-digit number of NASAMS, they’re likely to protect Kyiv, and then Kharkiv, and then maybe Odesa. It would take a number of systems to really deny Russian missiles a target — because Russia is only targeting for civilian deaths, not military value.
And there’s another big question: When? The U.S. may already have an order in for some NASAMS 2 or NASAMS 3 systems, but getting them to Ukraine in the next few weeks will take some international cooperation. That’s because these systems have proven very popular. There are currently outstanding orders from Oman and Qatar, as well as from the one European country least likely to play along with letting Ukraine move up in line—Hungary. That’s in addition to orders from countries who have some of these systems in place and want more.
Complicated as they may seem, NASAMS is widely regarded as one of the easiest to deploy air defense systems and bringing good protection for the price. Let’s just hope the Norwegians have decided that the people actively being hit by missiles get first dibs on missile defense.
Berdyansk
There appears to be another explosion at the docks in Berdyansk. This is the location where, a few weeks after the invasion began, Ukrainian forces severely damaged a Russian landing ship, and caused lighter damage to two others, with what was thought to be a strike from a Bayraktar drone. No details on this latest explosion.
That the Ukrainian air forces is still up there continues to be perhaps the most amazing aspect of this conflict.
Seeing these things roll down the street would give me the creeps, even if I knew they were firing at the other guys. They are simply menacing.
Spooky or not, why are these things so important? Because, unlike Russian GRAD MLRS systems that just count on peppering the general area of a target, HIMARS hits the target.
This is not HIMARS. But it shows how, four months into the invasion, Ukrainian forces have paired spotting by drone with fire from the older GRAD systems to give a fearsome reply to Russian artillery. This is a very good video on the situation around Izyum. Russian forces have been firing artillery, but have apparently been unable to assemble the forces necessary to advance.
When it comes to Ukraine’s own big guns, this does not exactly look like folks who are running out of artillery ammo. Whether that word was spread to get more shells shipped quickly, or just to give the Russians some overconfidence … judge for yourself.
Lysychansk
With fighting continuing the south and southwest suburbs, there are reports that Ukrainian forces are preparing to relocate out of Lysychansk. In spite of the terrain advantages, there are good reasons to withdraw and protect M777s and MLRS systems that have been firing from that city. Stay tuned for a positional update.
