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Tuesday, December 27, 2022 1:33:34 AM
Russian Air Base Is Attacked, as Ukraine Discounts Escalation Threat
"Shoppers killed as Russia bombs Kherson market 'for pleasure' on Christmas Eve"
Russia said falling wreckage from a Ukrainian drone had killed three servicemen at the base, some 300 miles from Ukraine, which would be the third such long-range attack this month.
A satellite image of Engels air base in Saratov, Russia, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It is home to some of Russia’s nuclear-
capable strategic bombers that are used to fire cruise missiles at Ukraine. Maxar Technologies, via Reuters
By Andrew E. Kramer
Dec. 26, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine launched a drone attack at an air base deep within Russian territory, killing three servicemen, the Kremlin said on Monday, as Kyiv’s forces demonstrated that they are increasingly willing and able to take the fight to Russia, and at longer range than ever before.
It was the third such strike this month, reflecting the assessment by Ukraine’s political and military leaders that there was little risk of Moscow’s escalating its war in retaliation, despite its threats of dire consequences for attacks against Russia. The Russian military is already fighting at the limits of its conventional capabilities, Ukrainians say, and the Kremlin’s hints of using nuclear weapons ring hollow.
The Russian military, in a statement cited by the state-run TASS news agency, said that it had shot down a Ukrainian drone on Monday as it approached the Engels air base, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It said that the falling wreckage had caused the casualties and that no aircraft had been damaged, assertions that could not be confirmed. Engels, home to some of Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers that are used to fire cruise missiles at Ukraine, was one of two air bases targeted by Ukrainian drones .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-bases.html .. on Dec. 5.
[...]
In the past three months, Russia has launched waves of missiles and drones at Ukraine, sending as many as 100 at a time in a bid to overwhelm air defenses. They have targeted civilian infrastructure like the electrical grid and heating plants, pitching millions of people at a time into the cold and dark .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/world/europe/ukraine-electricity-water-infrastructure.html .. amid dangerous winter weather.
In Bakhmut, a city on the front line in Donetsk, residents on Monday collected donated coal to heat their homes.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Russian officials who originally denied such strikes have since insisted that the targets had military value, and have cast the attacks as retaliatory. President Vladimir V. Putin has cited the Kerch bridge bombing as the motive, though the concentrated strikes on Ukraine’s power grid began earlier.
Ukraine and its allies have dismissed that as nonsense, noting that Russia has not hesitated to kill, wound or terrorize civilians since it began its invasion, and would be doing so no matter how Ukraine responded. The concentrated infrastructure attacks, they say, are a reaction to the battlefield setbacks of the Russian military — an illegal attempt to force Kyiv to capitulate by imposing maximum suffering on civilians.
[...]
The most sophisticated missile in Russia’s arsenal is the Kinzhal, which Mr. Putin has boasted of as a new superweapon and has used a few times against Ukraine. Like a cruise missile or drone, it can maneuver evasively in flight, and like a ballistic missile, it is hypersonic, traveling many times the speed of sound. President Biden has described it as “almost impossible to stop.”
But Russia began its invasion with 47 Kinzhals in its arsenal, Mr. Budanov said, and has manufactured only “a few” more during the war.
“You can scare the world with the fact that you have a Kinzhal,” he said. “But when you start to really use them, what’s next?”
Ivan Nechepurenko, Richard Pérez-Peña and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Andrew E. Kramer is a reporter covering the countries of the former Soviet Union. He was part of a team that won
the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. @AndrewKramerNYT
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/world/europe/russia-drone-attack-ukraine.html
"Shoppers killed as Russia bombs Kherson market 'for pleasure' on Christmas Eve"
Russia said falling wreckage from a Ukrainian drone had killed three servicemen at the base, some 300 miles from Ukraine, which would be the third such long-range attack this month.
A satellite image of Engels air base in Saratov, Russia, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It is home to some of Russia’s nuclear-
capable strategic bombers that are used to fire cruise missiles at Ukraine. Maxar Technologies, via Reuters
By Andrew E. Kramer
Dec. 26, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine launched a drone attack at an air base deep within Russian territory, killing three servicemen, the Kremlin said on Monday, as Kyiv’s forces demonstrated that they are increasingly willing and able to take the fight to Russia, and at longer range than ever before.
It was the third such strike this month, reflecting the assessment by Ukraine’s political and military leaders that there was little risk of Moscow’s escalating its war in retaliation, despite its threats of dire consequences for attacks against Russia. The Russian military is already fighting at the limits of its conventional capabilities, Ukrainians say, and the Kremlin’s hints of using nuclear weapons ring hollow.
The Russian military, in a statement cited by the state-run TASS news agency, said that it had shot down a Ukrainian drone on Monday as it approached the Engels air base, about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. It said that the falling wreckage had caused the casualties and that no aircraft had been damaged, assertions that could not be confirmed. Engels, home to some of Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers that are used to fire cruise missiles at Ukraine, was one of two air bases targeted by Ukrainian drones .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-bases.html .. on Dec. 5.
[...]
In the past three months, Russia has launched waves of missiles and drones at Ukraine, sending as many as 100 at a time in a bid to overwhelm air defenses. They have targeted civilian infrastructure like the electrical grid and heating plants, pitching millions of people at a time into the cold and dark .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/world/europe/ukraine-electricity-water-infrastructure.html .. amid dangerous winter weather.
In Bakhmut, a city on the front line in Donetsk, residents on Monday collected donated coal to heat their homes.
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Russian officials who originally denied such strikes have since insisted that the targets had military value, and have cast the attacks as retaliatory. President Vladimir V. Putin has cited the Kerch bridge bombing as the motive, though the concentrated strikes on Ukraine’s power grid began earlier.
Ukraine and its allies have dismissed that as nonsense, noting that Russia has not hesitated to kill, wound or terrorize civilians since it began its invasion, and would be doing so no matter how Ukraine responded. The concentrated infrastructure attacks, they say, are a reaction to the battlefield setbacks of the Russian military — an illegal attempt to force Kyiv to capitulate by imposing maximum suffering on civilians.
[...]
The most sophisticated missile in Russia’s arsenal is the Kinzhal, which Mr. Putin has boasted of as a new superweapon and has used a few times against Ukraine. Like a cruise missile or drone, it can maneuver evasively in flight, and like a ballistic missile, it is hypersonic, traveling many times the speed of sound. President Biden has described it as “almost impossible to stop.”
But Russia began its invasion with 47 Kinzhals in its arsenal, Mr. Budanov said, and has manufactured only “a few” more during the war.
“You can scare the world with the fact that you have a Kinzhal,” he said. “But when you start to really use them, what’s next?”
Ivan Nechepurenko, Richard Pérez-Peña and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Andrew E. Kramer is a reporter covering the countries of the former Soviet Union. He was part of a team that won
the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. @AndrewKramerNYT
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/world/europe/russia-drone-attack-ukraine.html
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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