He's back! 31 Jan: Open doors. Ukrainians wreak havoc in Crimea - Reporting from Ukraine

[TexasTowelie]

After a hiatus where the reporter took a vacation followed by a serious illness, our friend is back!

Day 707: Jan 31

Today, there is a lot of news from the south.

Several hours ago, Ukrainian forces conducted a concentrated missile strike on Crimea. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that Ukrainian aviation launched 20 missiles in the direction of Sevastopol and claimed that all of them were intercepted. Local residents, however, reported hearing 6 explosions in the northern part of Sevastopol. Judging by the footage, the target of the missile strike became the Russian airbase. Some sources claimed that apart from the airfield itself, at least one missile hit the underground headquarters, similar to what we saw near Mariupol last year.

Today’s missile strike should not have been a surprise because yesterday, Ukrainians conducted a successful drone strike. The drone strike focused on the western part of Crimea, and according to Russian sources, 11 drones were detected near Rozdolne, Tarkhankut, and Sevastopol. Most of the drones were operating near Rozdolne, which is exactly where Ukrainians managed to destroy a Russian air defense system radar station. The destruction of the radar undermined air defense in this region and opened a window for today’s missile strike.

And these latest developments serve as a direct extension of the much broader Ukrainian strike campaign in Crimea, which reached its peak intensity in the previous several weeks. In fact, connecting all these strikes together reveals an unbelievable scale and far-reaching implications of the operations because Ukrainians are not just aiming to destroy whatever equipment they can but rather exploit and exacerbate systematic weaknesses of the Russian military.

The first stage of the operation happened in the first half of January when Ukrainians focused their fire on the remnants of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. As you remember, Russians have already relocated much of it to Novorossiysk, causing the evolution of the Ukrainian goals. Nonetheless, Ukrainians did not want to reveal their new goals and designed the operation to make it seem like they were still chasing the Russian fleet. The strikes involved a lot of marine and aerial drones. Ukrainians even put to use the newest marine drones that were equipped with missiles and could damage Russian ships from afar. Interestingly, Ukrainian partisans from the Atesh Group recently revealed that one of the smaller ships sank in the bay, possibly due to this strike. Such development served as a great distraction, forcing Russians to focus on protecting the ships. Ukrainians reinforced this decision by launching anti-ship missiles from Odessa.

In the meantime, Ukrainians detected that some of the drones managed to get very close to Saky without being shot down, signaling that there was a weakness. Ukrainians immediately followed up with a comprehensive missile strike involving Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles, as well as various anti-radar and decoy rockets and drones. Based on the satellite footage, Ukrainians managed to destroy a Russian command post near Sevastopol, ammunition warehouses near Pervomaiske, and most importantly, an air defense radar system and a communications center in Yevpatoria responsible for coordinating Russian air defense operations. Russian analysts concluded that the real goal all along was degrading the Russian air defense umbrella.

And this was correct because the destruction of the radars and communication centers created a massive hole in the Russian airspace, which Ukrainians immediately started to take advantage of. In a matter of weeks, Ukrainian strikes started reaching not only eastern Crimea but also Tuapse, Krasnodar, and Rostov.

In order to plug the hole, Russia began constant sorties of A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft. Moreover, Russian commanders ordered to fly closer to the northern shore of Azov to cover possible strikes from the north. Ukrainians noticed that the aircraft usually reached Berdyansk and relocated the Patriot system to launch a hunt on it. As you know, the hunt was successful, and apart from destroying an extremely rare A-50, of which Russians have less than 10, Ukrainians also severely damaged an Il-22 airborne command post aircraft.

This temporarily created an even bigger hole in the sky, and Ukrainians immediately launched a series of missile and drone strikes. The targets became a chemical plant in Rostov, a massive oil refinery in Tuapse, and a speed boat factory near the same city.

[niyad]

1. Slava Ukraini! Thank you so much!!! I was getting really worried about him.

[TexasTowelie]

2. At the end of the video he said that he is going to reduce his schedule to try and improve his health.

Videos will come out Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. While I will miss the daily updates,, he does need to take care of his health.

[niyad]

3. He does indeed. May he recover completely.

[2naSalit]

5. True...

He's under a lot of stress, two years + now, others are doing similar pacing lately. Artur Rehi, several months ago, stated that he was being treated for depression and was altering his reporting somewhat to accommodate his well being. The Russian Dude and his wife are having a child so he's cutting back and probably good for his well being too.

It a hard time and the closer you are to it the more intense the pressure. I am thankful these guys all do the heavy lifting with their reporting and fund raising.

[2naSalit]

4. Yay!

Thanks for keeping up! And thanks for posting these!

[lamp_shade]

6. Thank you. I've been looking for these reports.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. I've missed these reports.

[Wuddles440]

8. Greatly appreciated as always!

And best wishes to all those supplying these reports.