How Did Ukraine Destroy So Many Russian Aircraft At That Crimean Airbase?

The Ukrainian attack on a Russian airfield in occupied Crimea on Tuesday was another unexpected David v. Goliath result, on a par with the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship in April. Some have even suggested the same type of missile was used as on that occasion. But although there is some confusion over exactly what happened, experts believe that it may not have been a missile strike at all.

The first satellite images of the site reveal the extent of the devastation, with rows of burned-out aircraft so badly damaged that even counting the wrecks has been difficult. The Ukrainian Air Force stated early on that nine aircraft were destroyed. Oryx, an independent site which has provided one of the most thoroughly verified resources on Russian casualties, reaches the same total, made up of four Su-30SM multirole aircraft destroyed along with five Su-24M/MR strike/tactical reconnaissance aircraft plus another damaged.

Another independent analyst, OSINTTechnical, puts the losses at 3 Su-30s, 4 Su-24s and one SU-27/30 destroyed for a total of eight, while a CNN consultant put the tally at seven. There are plenty of other estimates swirling about, up to unspecified Ukrainian sources who concur with the 4 Su-30M and 5-Su-24 but also add in 8 Su-27 and 6 Mi-6 transport helicopters.

The level of destruction comes as no great surprise after seeing the magnitude of the explosions that ripped through the base, which were captured by Russian tourists on a beach some distance away. One video shows rows of tower blocks a kilometer from the airbase with shattered windows, while a video taken while driving through the base’s car park reveals burned-out vehicles, one impaled sideways by a flying steel beam. Infrared images of the airbase from before and after the strike show a large area of burned-out vegetation showing the sort of temperatures that must have been involved.

It is tempting to assume that this strike must have been carried out by something massive, and given that it is beyond the range of HIMARS and other Ukrainian hardware, the assumption is that it is something new.

Some were quick to assume that this was the work of ATACMS, a long-range missile which can be fired from HIMARS launchers and which Ukraine has been requesting for some time. However, a Ukrainian military official told the New York Times that the weapons involved were “exclusively of Ukrainian manufacture.”

One line of speculation focuses on a mobile ballistic missile called Grom-2 which Ukraine has been working on for some time, but this is highly speculative and many question whether it could have been developed to operational status so quickly or question the lack of suitable GPS guidance systems for such a missile.

Another possible candidate is Ukraine’s Neptune missile, the type used to sink the Moskva. However, while Neptunes could in theory hit coastal targets on land, many have questioned whether they could accurately target anything as far inland as the air base due to the amount of radar clutter from buildings and other objects.

How else could Ukraine have struck targets at long distance? A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the destruction was the work of Ukrainian special forces. This may only have been part of the story though. A small group of commandos, possibly landed by submarine, would have trouble carrying out such a raid on a well-defended site in broad daylight and getting close enough to damage multiple aircraft. Maybe they had a way of attacking from a distance, hitting stealthily from well outside the perimeter fence.

Some, including Justin Bronk of U.K. defense think tank RUSI, have suggested the strike was carried out by small loitering munitions or kamikaze drones. Rob Lee points out that the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters in the Crimea was reportedly hit by a loitering munition on July 31, causing casualties.

The trick here is that you do not need a big bomb to cause a huge explosion. If there is a large amount of stored fuel or ammunition, all a drone needs to do is bring the detonator to set it all off. And the Russians seem to have made it very easy. Previous images of Russian airfields show that rather being stored securely in bunkers, the Russian Air Force leaves its bombs stacked out in the open.

In fact, the Russian Ministry of Defense even said that the blasts were caused by ‘aviation munitions’ igniting. They implied that an accident had occurred – just as they earlier claimed Moskva was sunk by an accident. The air base may well have been destroyed by an ammunition explosion, just not an accidental one.

Ironically enough, the Ukrainians may have got the idea from the Russians. A series of Ukrainian ammunition dumps were destroyed by massive explosions in 2015-2017, attributed to Russian special forces using small quadcopters to drop thermite grenades on them. Ukraine lost a lot of valuable ammunition at the time, but with the destruction of seven or more Russian aircraft in Crimea, they have paid back with interest.