an air base in Crimea was attacked on tuesday, and i don't feel it's getting the coverage/attention it deserves. credible estimates of damages range between 8 and 24 aircraft destroyed, and 2 to 4 ammo depots turned into fireworks. i've also seen estimates that 50-60 soldiers were KIA, mostly pilots (huge loss) and over 100 injured. it's the most planes that russia has lost in a single day since WWII. as they usually do, the russians deny it was an attack and instead claim it was an accident caused by negligence, possibly by a carelessly disposed cigarette... m'yeah.
the ukrainians are being coyly deflective when asked if they did it. no official word on how they carried out the attack, but a few theories:
#1- they used ATACMS, the 300 km missile that can be launched from HIMARS/M270/etc. officially the US has not given these missiles to the ukes, but that doesn't mean that haven't done so secretly. US DOD recently admitted that they gave ukrainians AGM-88 anti-radar missiles without disclosing it to the public.
#2- the ukes used a home-grown missile system, as a ukrainian official implied. they had several medium-range ballistic missile systems in development, in test, or had recently been exported. the neptune anti-ship cruise missiles could have been reprogrammed for such a mission.
BIG PROBLEM with theories #1 and #2: satellite images of the destruction are not consistent with a missile attack. witnesses describe 10 to 12 separate large explosions, but you can only see 5-6 craters and several of them can be explained by the missing ammo dump that used to be there. there are no stray craters, implying an unrealistic perfect 100% hit rate. which leads to the most likely explanation, IMO:
#3- specials ops, possibly with the help of sympathizers/partisans. the attack seemed to have been very localized: the only big explosions where at ammo dumps and a few planes, likely loaded with fuel and/or munitions. seems compatible with specops getting in there and planting multiple timed explosives.
this guy provides a good breakdown of the satellite imagery and one version of the "black ops did it" narrative (skip to 4:07 if you don't want background info on the attack).
so how BIG was this attack? it's on par with the sinking of the moskva, the flagship of the black sea fleet, back in april. why?
- strategic: ruskies have started pulling back assets from crimea, relocating them deeper into russia. this move to safety will reduce how often those planes can attack ukraine, will limit their responsiveness, etc.
- psychological: russians assumed that they were safe in crimea and could use it as they pleased to launch attacks. nope. must be humiliating for glorious red army.
- potential anti-propaganda value, maybe... following the attacks, russian tourists high-tailed it outta crimea, a popular beach destination. the traffic jam to get across the kerch strait bridge was backed up for dozens of miles, 24 hours after the attack it was still crawling. all these tourists will return to moscow with news that doesn't match the kremlin's official stories.
- general embarrassment: big powerful war machine couldn't prevent an attack 200 km away from the front lines? if it was indeed SpecOps, did they just walk in, mine the place and walk out? how did they manage to plant so many bombs in a secure military facility? (the explosions occurred during daylight hours, fyi.)
TL;DR: ukrainians kicked the muscovites' asses deep behind their own lines, blew up an air base, and now the ruskies need to rethink their assumption of safety and usefulness of crimea. it's a huge deal.
