War is fertile ground for speculation, but the images speak for themselves. On Thursday, Colorado-based US company Maxar Technologies provided samples of the destruction at Russia’s Saki airbase near the town of Novofedorivka on Crimea’s western coast. The photos were taken 24 hours earlier by their satellites.
According to these images, at least eight Russian-made and owned Sukhoi 24 and Sukhoi 30 fighter jets suffered significant damage or virtually disappeared from the map. The satellites also show the destruction of a hangar in the northwest corner and another building that appears to serve as a terminal. Russia defends that the damage to this airfield, which was preceded by several explosions recorded by citizens of neighboring cities and broadcast on social networks, was the result of the accidental detonation of ammunition on Tuesday.
According to Moscow, at least one person was killed and five injured. Volodimir Zelenski’s government has not assumed it was an attack by the Ukrainian army, but a government source who prefers anonymity has assured EL PAÍS that it was the work of his country’s special forces.
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Looking at the satellite photos distributed by Maxar and previously by the also American company Planet Labs makes it possible to locate the points inside the base that were hit, in some cases with obvious craters, generally the result of a strong impact and a subsequent explosion. Several positions cleared for parking the fighters and the two buildings mentioned are badly damaged. Other facilities or vehicles in the central zone of the affected area, as well as the runway, remain intact. This suggests that the ammunition detonation accident reported by the Kremlin was either extremely selective or was in fact an offensive by Ukrainian forces, albeit with great precision.
This last possibility raises new questions: Why doesn’t the Zelensky executive take responsibility? Several departments of the Ukrainian government have been consulted, they maintain the official version, that is, they take no responsibility, although they leave some doors open between a certain sarcasm and ambiguity. Two of Selesnki’s strongmen, advisers Mikhailo Podoliak and Andrei Yermak, said on Tuesday the blasts at Saki could be linked to the “ineffectiveness” or even “clumsiness” of Russian forces. Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, even suspected, jarringly, that it might have something to do with Russian military officers smoking at the airfield – a theory appealing to many Ukrainian citizens.
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Responding to questions from the Portal news agency on Thursday, Podoliak went a little further: “Officially we do not confirm or deny anything; There are numerous scenarios of what could have happened…considering that there were multiple epicenters of explosions at exactly the same time.” This adviser, a very relevant figure in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia so far, explained on his Twitter account pointedly: “Legally, Donetsk and Crimea have the same status as Mariupol or Melitopol.” That means they are subject to possible attacks for their recapture. The question would be whether this would be the first target of what Kyiv calls a “counteroffensive” in the territory occupied by the Russian army. Zelenskyy has declared in his Telegram profile that the war can only end with the “liberation of Crimea”, a peninsula occupied and annexed by Moscow in February 2014.
Kilometer-long queues of vehicles
If the responsibility of the Ukrainian special forces is confirmed, it would undoubtedly be their biggest strike against the Russian army and the first in Crimea, where hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens live. Many of them were surprised by the explosions at the air force base while vacationing on the west coast beaches. Images circulating on social media show miles of lines of vehicles heading east towards the Kerch Strait. The source consulted by EL PAÍS has not indicated whether these special forces are those who regularly operate in the Ukrainian army, or whether they are instead the so-called “partisans”, members of the country’s resistance in the occupied territories who have already slammed pro-Russian targets.
Whether or not they were the perpetrators of the attack, directly, through sabotage, or by pointing to the target, analysis of the images leaves little room for the accident that the Kremlin is defending. Ukrainian analysts and press speculate about the weapon used. From May to August 1, Joe Biden’s US administration deployed a total of 16 Himars systems, several rocket launchers that are in huge demand from Kyiv. “Minister Reznikov indicated that it would take a hundred of these weapons to counter the Russian advance. These systems allow the sequential launch of six missiles with a range of about 80 kilometers or a single surface-to-surface missile capable of hitting a target about 300 kilometers away.
Currently, Washington has apparently sent the first type to Ukraine, which, although it has already been used on the country’s eastern front, “supply is linked to use in occupied Ukraine, not to targets on Russian territory”, is carried out under normal conditions , it would reach a base like Saki in Crimea, at least 220 kilometers from the positions of Ukrainian forces to the south. There is also speculation that Ukrainian forces used the same type of missile that sank the Russian frigate Moskva in April, the jewel of the Black Sea Fleet, which incidentally operates out of Crimea. This anti-ship missile, weighing more than 800 kilograms, is usually used for targets at sea.
And meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry claims that the explosions at the Saki airbase were accidental in nature. If the authorship of the Ukrainian armed forces is confirmed, the blow would be double: first, it would show the enemy’s ability to hit strategic targets with long-range weapons, even in areas with Russian populations, as is the case in Crimea. Second, it would expose Russian anti-aircraft systems.
According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces at the base already know what happened, but don’t know from where or how the Ukrainians attacked them. The ISW also states that although Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for it, its army has claimed responsibility for, for example, the attack on an arms depot in Novoleksiivka, north of the Crimean peninsula, in the past few hours.
In times of war, speculation certainly flies. Here’s the latest: In the early morning hours of Thursday, eight explosions were heard at the Ziabrovka military airport in Belarus, 30 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. Minsk has reported that it was a “technical incident” but the Ukrainian street sympathizes with the idea it was theirs too. “Neither in occupied Crimea nor in occupied Belarus will you feel safe,” Podoliak said, invoking Russia. “Karma finds you everywhere.”
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