How Ukraine Hit Russian Forces Deep Inside Crimea

How did Ukrainian forces manage to pull off a complex and dangerous amphibious raid into the western part of the Crimean Peninsula? And how might it have paved the way for Ukraine’s major strike on the headquarters of Russia’s Black sea fleet in s evastopol? On August 24th a few hundred elite commandos arrived on shore via speed boats. They targeted the Russian Nebo-M and Kasta 2E2 Radar stations that monitor from Crimea to Kherson, detecting aircraft, drones and incoming missiles. Destruction of these radar assets are key to opening up a gap for future missile strikes here. I guess that’s one way to avoid all the Russian landmines, just motorboat your way around it.

Written by: Chris Cappy & George Burden
Edited by: Michael Michaelides

Attacks inside Crimea have become a world wide debate recently. There were Recent reports that Elon Musk told his engineers to not turn on the Starlink satellite network over Crimea in order to prevent a Ukrainian planned attack on the Black Sea fleet stationed in Sevastopol in 2022. A solid GPS connection is often required by the guidance systems in precision missile systems. Complicating matters, US sanctions against Russia may have prevented Musk from turning the satellites on and he was never ordered by the US Government to do so. Musk said he feared a major attack here would make him complicit in a major act of war. Defenders of this action claim it avoided world war III meanwhile Ukraine on the other hand claims this allowed the Russian navy to continue to fire cruise missiles on their cities which killed innocent people.

The recent amphibious assault and missile attacks on the black sea fleet on Crimean soil was previously unimaginable so what new conditions allowed for this strike? The action actually started the day prior on August 23rd when Ukraine destroyed a Russian S-400 air defense system in Crimea at the same exact area where special forces would land the very next day. Drone footage was released as evidence of the S-400 blown to pieces. To give you an idea of how valuable these are one battery of the export version costs around $500 million dollars. The attached Podlet K1 Radar allows it to detect and strike aircraft up to 400km at an altitude of around 30km. This weapon is seen as one of Moscow's most prized assets so its destruction leaves the Crimean air defense network weakened.