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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/08/23/ukraine-just-blew-up-russias-main-missile-base-in-occupied-crimea/?sh=3a7af7226dd8

Ukraine Just Blew Up Russia’s Main Missile Base In Occupied Crimea
David Axe
Forbes Staff
I write about ships, planes, tanks, drones, missiles and satellites.
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5 Aug 23, 2023,05:10pm EDT
An S-400 battery explodes in Crimea.
An S-400 battery explodes in Crimea.UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION
After capturing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in February 2014, the
Russian armed forces established a major missile base on Cape Tarkhankut
in western Crimea.

There, the Russians deployed an S-400 surface-to-air missile battery, a
battery armed with Bastion anti-ship cruise missiles and a suite of
radars including a Podlet K1 and potentially others.

Assisted by the Podlet, the S-400 battery could threaten aerial targets
as far away as 250 miles—covering the entire western Black Sea—while the
Bastion could hit ships at a distance of 190 miles or so. A Bastion also
can strike targets on land.

It’s not unfair to call the Cape Tarkhankut site the linchpin of Russian
air and naval defenses across the Black Sea and Crimea. Which is why, on
Wednesday, the Ukrainian armed forces blew it up.

We don’t know exactly what happened, but we do know this: around 10:00
A.M. on Wednesday, local time, a series of explosions rocked the cape.
It’s possible the Ukrainian air force hit the Russian base with Storm
Shadow cruise missiles or S-200 ballistic missiles. It also is possible
drones or saboteurs were responsible.

Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the exiled Ukrainian mayor of
Russian-occupied Mariupol, claimed the Bastion battery was hit.
Ukrainian intelligence added that the S-400 battery and its crew was
wiped out, too. It’s hard to imagine the Podlet K1 and other large
radars on the peninsula escaped attention.

“This is a painful blow to the air-defense system of the occupiers,
which will have a serious impact on further events in the occupied
Crimea,” the intelligence agency stated.

It’s the clear objective of Ukraine’s 10-week-old counteroffensive to
drive the 50 miles from the front line to the Black Sea in occupied
southern Ukraine and sever the land links between Russia and Crimea,
leaving the Russian occupiers on the peninsular dependent on vulnerable
ships and aircraft for resupply.

In cutting off the garrison, the Ukrainians could begin starving
it—setting favorable conditions for the eventual liberation of Crimea.
Ideally, Ukraine would liberate Crimea “without a fight,” Ukrainian
defense minister Oleksii Reznikov has said.

But that only would be possible with a virtual blockade of the Russian
garrison—a blockade Russia’s air and naval defenses on the peninsula are
supposed to prevent. With the destruction of a key missile and radar
site, the blockade becomes more feasible.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian positions in Crimea are escalating, with
explosives-laden drone boats swarming Russian naval bases and aerial
drones, Storm Shadows and S-200s plucking at Russian air bases,
logistical facilities and bridges.

Expect these raids to escalate even further as Russian air and naval
defenses—themselves targets of Ukraine’s drones and missiles—unravel.

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David Axe
David Axe
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I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.

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