Moscow was forced to significantly reorganize its bases after November 2022, when Russian forces were forced to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. This meant that they also had to move valuable combat helicopters to new bases. The Russians chose the solution of moving the helicopters to smaller, better camouflaged colonies, away from the front line.
On the other hand, the Ukrainians have found these hidden sites, which they are trying to destroy.
Kiev received only 20 M39 missiles from the United States, but even this minimal amount could cause serious damage to helicopters. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Russian helicopters were destroyed at the Bergansk and Luhansk bases. As a result of the attacks, Moscow wanted to reduce the risks, so it moved the remaining fleet of vehicles to smaller, more remote locations.
One of the most important steps in this was the evacuation of the main base in Tsaplinka, and then a large part of the capabilities was installed in the resort of Strlikovy near the Crimean peninsula. This was not hidden from the eyes of the Ukrainians either, as they launched an attack on the military base with a Storm Shadow cruise missile.
Russian air defenses proved incapable, as the Ukrainians had previously focused on destroying key radars.
This opened the way for Ukrainian forces to target more distant bases.
However, the lack of equipment in the Ukrainian army is a problem, as evidenced by the fact that they have not fired a single M39 missile for six weeks. This may indicate that Kiev may have completely exhausted its depth sensing assets. The biggest problem is that because of the support provided to Ukraine, which has become an issue of US domestic policy, it is not yet clear when they will receive another batch of weapons from Washington.
The cover image is an illustration. Cover image source: Aziz Karimov/Getty Images
