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Ukraine War: Russian Bombers Fire Cruise Missile For Battlefield Interdiction After Limited Success With Infra Attacks

Russian Aerospace Forces (RuAF), which have periodically employed cruise missile wave attacks to degrade Ukrainian power generation and communication infrastructure, appear to have changed tack. RuAF is now using cruise missiles for battlefield interdiction.

Russia’s most recent cruise missile attack on April 28, 2023, involved fewer missiles (Ukrainian sources claim 25) than in the past, when Russia has used around 80 missiles at times. More significantly, the recent attack targeted troops and equipment moving to the battlefront, not infrastructure.

Limited Success Of Infrastructure Strikes?

In an earlier analysis, we had stated, “It’s likely that past Russian infrastructure attacks using expensive cruise missiles didn’t negatively impact Ukraine’s war-fighting ability along the battlefront to the extent that Russia had hoped for.

“The steady flow of US/NATO arms and ammunition, as well as power generation and grid equipment, prevented the enfeeblement of Ukrainian forces. As a result, Russia has now resorted to hitting Ukrainian forces hard with heavy and accurate air-delivered bombs.”

Following the April 28 attack, the Russian MoD (RuMoD), in a statement, stated, “Russian Aerospace Forces launched a high-precision long-range air-based missile strike against temporary deployment points of Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) reserves.

“The goal of the attack has been reached. All the assigned targets have been neutralized. The movement of the enemy reserves into the combat areas has been prevented.”

Yaroslav Yakimkin, an officer of the press center of the Russian forces “Vostok” group, announced in a video statement, “In the course of hostilities in the Kupyansk direction, the military personnel of the Zapad group of troops … thwarted two attempts to rotate units in the area of populated Novomlynsk and Dvurechnaya points.”

The April 28 attack was likely prompted by Ukraine moving some of its reserves near the battlefront in preparation for its upcoming offensive.

Changed Tactics

Interestingly, all the cruise missiles used on April 28, 2023, were launched by RuAF bombers. In the past, cruise missile attack waves have used sea and ground-launched missiles. Maneuvering of Russian Black Sea fleet ships before launching the cruise missiles likely alerted Ukrainian forces to an impending attack.




Kalibr cruise missile Russia
File Image: Russian Kalibr cruise missile

Evidence suggests that the RuAF, in a methodical manner characteristic of its commander General Sergey Surovikin, is switching posture and tactics to become more relevant in the ongoing war against Ukraine.

Thus far, the much-vaunted Russian artillery has dominated the battlefront and put Ukrainian forces on the back foot. Russian artillery has facilitated incremental but inexorable advances of Russian troops pitted against well-entrenched Ukrainian troops in heavily fortified positions. Bakhmut and Avdeevka are the most talked about examples.

The irony is modern air power easily scores over artillery with its ability to strike anywhere along and behind the battlefront with great precision using the third dimension! The third dimension, mainly inaccessible to ground forces, allows aerial strike platforms to ignore any amount of ground fortification.

Understanding What Held Back The RuAF

Despite what most Western analysts suggest, RuAF’s less-than-stellar performance cannot be attributed to poor leadership or training.

RuAF performance has been hampered by the free flow of battlefield intelligence and targeting information to Ukrainian forces from theater-level US/NATO situational awareness and ISR platforms like the RC-135 and the E-3 Sentry, as well as tactical-level SIGINT, EW, and ISR from assets such as RQ-4D, US Navy P-81, and US Army RC-12.

The above assets operate in NATO or international airspace. International law prevents Russia from attacking these assets.

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