22 Dec: Genius. Ukrainians Conduct Aerial Ambush - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 667: Dec 22

Today, the biggest news comes from the Kherson region.

Here, Ukrainian forces conducted a successful aerial ambush and destroyed multiple Russian fighter bombers. Such an ambush was just a matter of time because the concentration of Russian aviation in this region was extremely high lately. Both Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that the main weapon of the Russian forces against the Ukrainian bridgeheads on the eastern bank of the river were air-dropped bombs because virtually all Russian ground operations on the islands were suicidal – Russians were killed from tanks, mortars, and artillery from the high western bank.

The Russian bombs themselves have very low efficiency because of their low accuracy. However, after Russians started to increase the number of bombs dropped per day and on some days dropped up to 100 bombs, the Ukrainian command understood that they needed to come up with something that would discourage Russians from conducting these airstrikes.

The task was not easy, as Russians are dropping these bombs around 50 km from the front line, so regular air defense like “Buk-M1” cannot reach Russian aircraft. The good news is that to launch their bombs so far from the target, Russians necessarily need to operate at very high altitudes, reaching more than 12 kilometers. At such high altitudes, the geography of the region simply cannot impede any radars from detecting and tracking the target.

Luckily, Ukrainians also have several Patriot air defense systems that are capable of dealing with this problem. When it comes to intercepting targets at such high altitudes, the Patriot system has an effective range of up to 160 km, which means that Ukrainians could put one launcher 100 km away from the front line and still reach Russian aircraft.

Russian sources reported that today they tried to conduct an airstrike on Krynky with 3 Su-34 aircraft, which are capable of dropping 18 bombs in total, however, something went terribly wrong. According to Russian sources, before the Russians were even ready to drop their bombs, the jets’ warning radar went off, signaling that the jet was locked as a target. Russian sources added that there was not enough time to get out of the range. As a result, all 3 fighter bombers were successfully destroyed. One crew managed to survive, while other crews did not.

Later, Russian analysts reported the the Russian radar warning system did not help because Ukrainians purposefully kept their Patriot radars inactive. Russians analysts speculated that the only way to make this work was to put a small radar with a short range near the front line, keep this radar active all the time, and when it detects the Russians jets and the Russian radar warning goes off, the radar does not save them because Russians are deep inside the trap, and then Ukrainians can activate the powerful Patriot radar, lock the target, and destroy the aircraft.

Russian analysts concluded that such an outcome was just a matter of time because Russians were using aviation in the Kherson region too extensively. A Ukrainian fighter reported today that the Russian command was expecting this as well, and they actually tried to prepare for it. He said that Russians developed a theory that Ukrainians masked Patriot systems as postal service trucks, which is why Russians conducted several strikes on Ukrainian postal infrastructure. Unfortunately for Russians, the real Patriot systems remained intact.

To add insult to injury, Ukrainians conducted a series of airstrikes on the Russian side of the river with JDAM bombs. Recently released footage shows how 6 bombs land on 3 different Russian warehouses in the region. The video also shows 2 Russian Su-25 that tried to intercept the bombs, however, the attempts were unsuccessful. It turned out that Ukrainian fighters from the 140th Brigade, who were responsible for the JDAM strikes, also conducted a series of HIMARS strikes. The targets became Russian forces concentrations, such as a battery of long-range multiple-launch rocket systems, armored fighting vehicles, and Russian camps with personnel concentrations.