Crimea strike has big implications for next phase of war

A cigarette just destroyed a Russian military base and nine warplanes in occupied Crimea. Well, that’s one of the explanations put forward for the series of explosions at the Saky airfield on the southwestern coast of the peninsula.

The cigarette option came from Ukraine’s Emergency Situations Ministry which suggested that Russian military personnel serving at Crimean air bases “should be more careful where they throw cigarette butts.”  It’s possible, but also highly implausible and it can be safely assumed the Ministry’s explanation was made “cigarette in cheek” in response to a Russian statement that the incident was due to “poor fire safety”.

Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the explosions and Russia says they were caused by an accident which is about as plausible as the discarded butt theory. Satellite company, Planet Labs, has released pictures of the base showing extensive damage and three almost identical craters. That, along with the fact that the explosions were simultaneous, suggests a precision strike from the air.

If that is the cause, then it looks as if Ukraine has a hitherto unknown long range strike capability. That in turn has implications for the next phase of the war.

Saky is 200 kilometres from the current front lines – well beyond the range of the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) recently delivered to Ukraine by the Americans. They are being used to devastating effect, hitting targets up to 60 kms behind the Russian front lines including ammunition depots, command posts, and at least one bridge. British M270 artillery launchers are also present, but their range is about 80 kms.

Weapons experts suggest several other possibilities: long range drones converted into a low budget cruise-like missile, modified Neptune anti-ship missiles, modified missiles launched from fighter jets, American ATACMS rockets, or a home-made weapon known as the Grim developed by Ukraine’s Yuzhmash company.

Most of these explanations seem unlikely. The ATACMS rockets can be launched from a HIMARS and have the range, but the White House has said it is not ready to send them because it knows they could be fired into Russia.  The Grim can’t be ruled out. Several weeks ago, former Interior Ministry advisor, Viktor Andrusiv, said Ukraine has ammunition with a range of 200-300 kms and this week an official was quoted as saying “a device exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture was used.” It is known that Yuzhmash has been designing a long-range missile for several years.

Whatever it was – Ukraine officially doesn’t have it, but it worked. The attack caused panic among the thousands of Russians holidaying in the occupied territory. Roads were jammed as they loaded their cars and fled across the Kerch Bridge – the only land route into Russia.

If Kyiv can now bring this weapon into frequent, or even occasional use, it can be a game changer. The Kerch Bridge would be on the target list along with many other hitherto unreachable Russian military assets. The bridge is a major supply link for the occupying forces and the air base is used to fly bombing missions across Ukraine.

We are now almost 6 months into the war. Since mid-April, when Moscow abandoned its attempt to take Kyiv, its forces have focussed on the eastern Donbas region. Slow, but steady progress has been made because Russian forces have longer range artillery to push the Ukrainian army back. HIMARS has changed that and put things on a more equal footing.

HIMARS will also be useful when the war’s third stage gears up later this month. The Ukrainians are preparing a major counter offensive in the south to try and recapture large parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Kherson borders Crimea to the South. To hold it, the Russians need a flow of supplies and one of the routes in is the Kerch bridge, another is the Saky airfield. If Kyiv has enough missiles, and the means to deliver them, the supply routes will be hit.