Latest ATACMS Strike, Disables Russian Air Base Closest To Kursk

Khalino is where the Russian Sukhoi fighter jets and drone forces supporting the Kremlin attempt to retake Kursk oblast are based. 

That Ukraine struck the base in its third major ATACMS strike inside Russia suggests that the Ukrainians are working strategically to degrade the Russian offensive. JL

David Axe reports in Forbes:

Early Monday at least one of the 3,700-pound ATACMS burst over Khalino air base, in Kursk 70 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border, "temporarily putting the airfield out of action.”  Khalino is the closest major airfield to the Kursk battlefield, so the Russian air force has been staging its main ground-attack jets, subsonic Sukhoi Su-25s, at the base. The hit on Khalino could also deprive Russia’s drone force of a critical front-line staging base. And if any surface-to-air missile batteries or radars went up in flames in the raid, there could be a new gap in Russian air defenses. 

When the news broke last week that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden had authorized Ukraine to fire American-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets at targets in around Kursk Oblast in western Russia, the Russian air force braced for the ATACMS, each packing up to 950 submunitions, to rain down.

 

The storm finally rolled in early Monday morning. “What the fuck? It’s exploding!” a Russian servicemember exclaimed in a video as at least one of the 3,700-pound ATACMS burst over Khalino air base, in Kursk 70 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border. An ATACMS ranges as far as 190 miles.

The raid may have had the effect of “potentially temporarily putting the airfield out of action,” reported Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group. That’s good news for the 20,000-strong Ukrainian force holding a 250-square-mile salient around the town of Sudzha 50 miles southwest of Khalino. That force is expecting a massive Russian assault in the coming days.

Khalino is the closest major airfield to the Kursk battlefield, so it makes sense that the Russian air force has been staging its main ground-attack jets, subsonic Sukhoi Su-25s, at the base. The Russian Su-25 force has been badly bled by Ukrainian air defenses in the 33 months of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine: the Ukrainians have shot down or damaged around three dozen of the roughly 200 Su-25s the Russians operated prior to 2022.

The Khalino strike may have knocked out additional Su-25s. But the Russians have been scrambling to build revetments at the base, potentially offering some protection for the planes. And it’s possible many of the Su-25s evacuated just prior to the ATACMS raid. “Activity at the base had noticeably decreased in recent days, leaving it unclear whether significant numbers of aircraft were hit,” Frontelligence Insight explained.

 

That doesn’t mean the base—specifically, its fuel tanks, command facilities and warehouses and nearby air-defense batteries—weren’t worth striking with one or more of Ukraine’s modest inventory of ATACMS, which may have numbered just a few dozen rockets at its peak.

The hit on Khalino could deprive Russia’s drone force of a critical front-line staging base. And if any surface-to-air missile batteries or radars went up in flames in the raid, there could be a new gap in Russian air defenses. That “could create opportunities for future strikes with more cheap and numerous drones,” according to Frontellience Insight.

Monday’s ATACMS strike is the third major Ukrainian deep strike on strategic targets in and around Kursk since the United States—and later the United Kingdom and France—authorized Ukraine to use its best foreign-made missiles against targets inside Russia.

As the battle for Kursk escalates, more Ukrainian strikes are likely. And further Russian retaliation is likely, too. The terrifying ballistic missile raid on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday is widely viewed as a response to those ATACMS thundering down on Russia.