9 months ago
46
Back in November of last year, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) maven Defmon dug into satellite images of a Russian logistics base at a coal mine in Yuvileine, on the outskirts of Luhansk city. Sifting through the images, he found several warehouse complexes with dozens of vehicles orbiting, a large fueling station, a maintenance area, more buildings that seemed to be administrative or barracks, and convoys of vehicles on the roads around the complex.
Outside the range of GMLRS rocket artillery, Russia had built itself a major logistics base next to the only major Russian-occupied city, Luhansk.
The existence of this logistics center, 90 kilometers from the front line, provided major impetus for delivering ATAMS long-range rockets to Ukraine. Ukraine’s successful Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensive were preceded by major disruptions to Russia’s logistics networks. Similar future success would require the same kind of preparation work (or “shaping” as the military kids say). Ukraine still hasn’t received those American-made rockets, but they did get long-range cruise missiles from the United Kingdom and, soon, France. And then this happened.
So just like GMLRS rockets hampered Russian logistics ahead of Ukraine’s Kherson and Kharkiv counteroffensives, Ukraine is degrading Russian logistics and command control with their new longer-range toys. And if ATACMS finals gets greenly? Oh Lordy.
