How are the US-made ATACMS missiles being used by Ukrainian forces?
Yesterday, in Sevastopol, Crimea we saw how Kiev is using the Wunderwaffen tactical, ground-to-ground 300-km range ballistic missiles known by the acronym ATACMS which the United States has been delivering to them.
In the past week, Washington lifted all restrictions on how the Ukrainians use these weapons, although that is a bit of disinformation in itself, since the targeting is possible only with the assistance of American military experts using reconnaissance intelligence which the Ukrainians themselves do not possess.
The latter point is not based on my personal expertise, which is nil, but on what the Russians are saying on state television, and whether true or not, it is highly relevant to the decisions the Kremlin will now take on how to respond to what they are denouncing as ‘terrorist acts.’
Why terrorism? Because the target in yesterday’s attack on Sevastopol, which happens to be the home port of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, was not one of the many possible naval installations. No, it was the municipal beach where, on a fine summer weekend, parents and children were out in the open.
These ATACMS were configured to carry fragmentation bombs and are intended to be used against field soldiers in their trenches. In the given case, the Ukrainians fired 5 ATACMS at Sevastopol, of which 4 were shot down by Russian air defenses while the fifth had, as intended, overwhelmed the system and got through to target where it brought about mayhem.
Latest reports from the office of the governor in Sevastopol are that more than 150 civilians have been injured, some seriously and under treatment in intensive care, while a number of adults and several children were killed outright.
In the view of Russian news commentators, the objective of the attack was precisely to terrorize the local, regional and national population in Russia and to prompt some outsized revenge attack by Russia that then can be condemned by the world and take us all to the next level of escalation in this war. At a minimum, it was intended as a serious distraction of global attention away from the destruction of the Ukrainian army on the battlefield, where the recently introduced daily use by the Russians of several hundred 300-kg repurposed ‘dumb bombs’ into maneuverable glider bombs has been killing the equivalent of two brigades of Ukrainian infantry each day, a loss which comes on top of the devastating losses they suffer from Russian artillery.
In short, the closer we come to the utter destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces, the more frantic are U.S. and Ukrainian efforts to shift attention away from the battlefield through terror unleashed on the Russian civilian populations.
So what may we expect from the Russian side now?
This was the main topic for discussion on last night’s edition of the Vladimir Solovyov talk show.
First attention is being given to leveling the Ukrainian city of Kharkov to the ground. Why Kharkov? Because it is from that city and its environs that the Ukrainians are launching daily missile attacks on the civilian population of the neighboring Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. Per Solovyov, this should be done in a civilized manner, giving the city’s inhabitants three days to clear out before the bombs will fall.
But that is not all. Solovyov, who is widely watched in Russia, is calling for the leveling to the ground of Odessa, from where the ATACMS attack on Sevastopol may have been launched and also of Kiev, where the decisions to launch were taken.
As for retribution on the American enablers of the ATACMS attack, no word yet on what the Russians may be planning for them, but Solovyov was surely not just speaking for himself when he said it is high time for Russia to down the Global Hawk reconnaissance drones which the United States has been flying in the Black Sea to provide intelligence necessary to target the ATACMS missiles. There was also a strong hint that the newly signed mutual defense pact with North Korea will be activated so as to strike against American military assets in an asymmetric fashion.
I conclude this brief account with a Kudos to Mr. Jake Sullivan, for his fine work taking Europe a big step closer to a bloody finale by freeing Ukrainian hands to do as they will with American weapons.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024