Satellite images show devastation at the Russian air base in Crimea

Kyiv (Reuters) – Satellite images released on Thursday showed destruction at a Russian air base in Crimea that was attacked, suggesting Kyiv may have acquired a long-range offensive capability with the potential to change the course of the war.

Images released by the independent satellite company Planet Labs showed three near-identical craters where buildings at Russia’s Saki Air Base were bombed with apparent precision. The base, located on the southwestern coast of Crimea, suffered extensive fire damage with charred crusts of at least eight visibly destroyed warplanes.

Russia denied hitting planes and said the explosions seen at the base on Tuesday were accidental.

Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack or explained exactly how it was carried out.

“Officially, we do not confirm or deny anything,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak told Reuters in a letter. .

Western military experts said the scale of damage and the apparent accuracy of the strike indicated a powerful new capability with potentially important implications.

Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, uses the peninsula as a base for its Black Sea Fleet and as a major supply route for invasion forces occupying southern Ukraine, with Kyiv planning a counterattack in the coming weeks.

“I’m not an intelligence analyst, but it doesn’t look good,” Mark Hertling, former commander of US Ground Forces in Europe, wrote on Twitter, pointing to a photo of the destruction of the Russian base.

His colleague, retired US General Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency, replied, “I am. He’s very good.”

The Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank, said Ukrainian officials were portraying the Crimean offensive as “the beginning of Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south, indicating that the Ukrainian army expects heavy fighting in August and September which may decide the outcome of the next phase of the war.”

How exactly the attack was carried out remains a mystery. Some Ukrainian officials have been quoted as saying that the order may have been sabotage by hackers. But the similar craters and simultaneous eruptions seem to indicate that it has been hit by a barrage of weapons capable of evading Russian defenses.

The base is far beyond the range of the advanced missiles that Western countries admit to sending to Ukraine so far, but within the range of the more powerful versions Kyiv has sought. Ukraine also has anti-ship missiles that could theoretically be used to strike targets on land.

new stage

Ukraine expelled Russian forces from the capital Kyiv in March and from the outskirts of Kharkiv, the second largest city, in May. Russia then captured more territory in the east in fierce battles that killed thousands of soldiers on both sides in June.

Since then, the front lines have been largely static, but Kyiv says it is preparing for a major push to retake the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, the main part of territory captured since the February 24 invasion and which Moscow still controls.

Russia has fortified those areas, but its defense depends on supply lines to supply its forces with the thousands of shells they are used to firing.

Kyiv hopes that the arrival last month of US missile systems capable of hitting targets behind the frontline could tip the balance in its favour. But the West has so far stopped providing long-range missiles that could strike deep into Russia itself or hit Moscow’s many bases in the Crimea, which it annexed.

Russia says its “special military operation” will plan to protect Russian speakers and separatists in the south and east. Ukraine and its Western allies say that after failing to overthrow the government in Kyiv, Moscow now aims to tighten its grip on as much territory as possible with the ultimate goal of eliminating Ukraine as an independent state.

Tens of thousands were killed, millions fled, and cities were destroyed.

On Thursday, Russia rejected an offer by Switzerland to represent Moscow’s diplomatic interests in Kyiv and vice versa. Historically neutral Switzerland has a long tradition of offering its embassies to host diplomatic offices of countries at odds with each other, and Russia is already represented in Georgia.

But Moscow said Switzerland was no longer neutral because it had signed most of the European Union’s sanctions against Russia.

Bombing

Although little significant progress has been made on both sides in recent weeks, intense skirmishes are still underway.

Ukraine reported Russian bombing along the entire front line, from the area around Kharkov in the northeast, through the eastern Donetsk province, and on the banks of the wide Dnipro River in Zaporizhia, Kherson and adjacent provinces.

Three people were killed and seven wounded in shelling in Nikopol, on the right bank of the Dnipro River, hit by 120 Grad missiles, said Valentin Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Russian-backed separatists claimed to have captured Pesky, a front-line town on the outskirts of the separatist-held city of Donetsk, which has seen fighting in recent days.

“It’s hot in Biske. The town is ours, but there are still scattered pockets of resistance in its north and west,” said Daniel Bessonov, a separatist official on Telegram.

Ukrainian officials denied the town fell. Reuters was unable to verify either account.

Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of killing at least 13 people and wounding 10 by missiles fired from the vicinity of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

“Cowardly Russians can do nothing more, so they are attacking the towns hiding at the Zaporizhzhya atomic power plant,” Andrei Yermak, Chief of Staff of President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on social media. Ukraine says about 500 Russian soldiers are at the plant, where Ukrainian technicians continue to work.

Reporting by Reuters offices. Written by Peter Graf. Editing by Hugh Lawson

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