From "The Analyst":
MISSILES AND DRONES DOMINATED
The past end of week and the weekend and my short trip to Kyiv to give a talk - which was quite last minute and at the request of someone you can’t really say no too in the circumstances, was very difficult to process.
It was dominated by the missile and drone strikes, a sense of urgency and heightened security that felt oppressive even though it was for our own safety. Detached from detailed news and information, moving from one secure location to another three times and little sleep, you get a sense of what it’s like for so many trying to run the country.
Yet despite it all they carry on as best they can, almost forcing themselves to be normal and manage a routine that’s constantly interrupted.
The wailing of sirens is haunting and dystopian. It’s like being in some first person sci-fi movie that’s set ten years from now but isn’t. The missiles and the drones someone told me, feel like they’re aimed at you. There’s this inexplicable feeling they’re hunting you.
The strategy the Russians used for these attacks was complex and highly evolved. They clearly had excellent information on the whereabouts of much of the air defences and their targets were far more carefully chosen. The routings that the drones and missiles used was complex and designed specifically to confuse the defenders, making it difficult to decide what to shoot down when decision times are in the sub-60 second window.
The missiles themselves have evolved - the larger cruise missiles now fitted with decoy packs and infrared flare generators as they reach their terminal phase.
Russia has also learned that the only way to overcome the defences is increasing the numbers of weapons in the attacks. An inevitable result of better defences, long predicted.
Ferocious engagements on the front have continued but little ground has been surrendered.
The war for now has become a relentless missile and drone conflict -
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet landing ships are now almost all destroyed, Ukrainian dominance of the western half of it near total. Crimea has become a dangerously uncomfortable place to be deployed for Russian forces. No bunker is safe, no airfield secure.
Ukraine continues to hammer Russian oil refineries and they seem powerless to stop drones hitting key production targets- the vital cracking plants that simply can’t be replaced in any reasonable space of time. So many have been destroyed world wide production would struggle to replace them in anything but the long term. The Russians have little chance of making such repairs in less than a year, likely much longer. These attacks are having a huge impact on Russian refined output. It’s forcing them to stop exporting refined product and restrict it domestically. The damage runs into billions. It’s a strategy as damaging economically as you could ever hope. And it slowly brings it home to your average Ruski.
Putin offered security in exchange for keeping quiet. For not protesting his rule.
Yet the Moscow attack proved the abject failure of the security services. Some even blame them. An OMRON base was just 1km up the road and yet they took an hour to turn up. The stadium was equipped with high levels of security equipment yet its owner claims they were mysteriously and inexplicably turned off. And it’s not like the FSB hasn’t done this before. Yet that’s all too simple.
This was, even the Americans think, a genuine Isis-K attack. Russia’s legacy for its war crushing the freedom fighters in Syria and the extremists of Isis.
Add to that the unwise but irritating attacks around Belgorod and Russia looks weak. Enemies have penetrated to the heart of its empire. Run amok on its borders with seeming impunity and The State has failed to provide its end of the bargain. Wrapped up as it is in a war, blundered into by a fool cut off from reality by his own paranoia. It’s not been a good week or so in post-election Russia.
Slava Ukraini !
