‘Border strikes will not change the situation’ – military analyst
3 June 2024 11:08
EXCLUSIVE
The new permissive regime for shallow strikes against Russia will not fundamentally change the situation on the frontline, particularly in the Kharkiv sector. About this in an exclusive commentary [Kommersant] military expert Pavlo Narozhnyi said in an exclusive interview.
He argues that allowing key Ukrainian partners to strike at Russian military targets in the border area will not change the situation at the front. After all, there are few such facilities in this area.
“Let it be 10-20 km from the front line. There are some ammunition depots there, maybe some artillery installations. But there are no airfields, command posts, or large ammunition depots. They are located about 100 km from the contact line,”
– says the expert.
According to Narozhnyi, in order to inflict significant losses on the enemy, it is necessary to expand the permitted area of destruction by heavy weapons.
“Here we can only talk about heavy weapons – HIMARS, etc. If we are given the opportunity to use these types of weapons, we can destroy their concentration points, where there is a lot of manpower. The enemy’s losses will be huge. They will be able to continue fighting, but to a more limited extent. We are also talking about destroying fuel depots,”
– said the analyst.
He believes that the key point that could change not just the situation at the front, but the logistics and the model of using Western weapons in general, could be strikes from heavy weapons on military airfields.
“We don’t have enough air defence systems. [We can] shoot down an aircraft with a $2-6 million missile, like the Patriot, or hit an airfield with two or three $1 million missiles, if we are talking about the outdated ATACMS, which is most likely what we are getting. It is much cheaper to destroy the airfield,”
– narozhny added.
The military expert assumes that sooner or later the allies will grant such permission.
“Just shooting at the infantry, which is 10 kilometres away, is not very useful. We need to destroy strategically important points that are far from the front line. Still, I think that we will be given such permission someday, and we will see strikes with such weapons deep into Russia,”
– said Pavlo Narozhny.
Last week, a number of partner countries allowed Ukraine to use the weapons they provided to strike at Russian territory. Ukraine also received such permission from Germany and the United States, but these states allowed strikes only on border areas, and the United States also limited the list of weapons that can be used.
