Frontline report: Ukraine strikes Crimea, seventh Russian military base targeted in month

First of all, multiple sources confirmed that Ukrainians advanced in the Luhansk region. If previously, Ukrainians just localized the Russian breakthrough and pushed them from the most recently taken positions, then right now, Ukrainians cut the Russian bridgehead into two halves and are predominantly focused on eliminating the northern group. Ukrainian fighters that operate in the vicinity of Tverdokhlibove released a video showing one of the storming operations.

The fighters reported conducting reconnaissance in the region when they spotted a well-fortified Russian position. The commander of the unit evaluated the situation and decided to engage. The element of surprise played a major role, as Russians failed to organize a coherent response. As a result, Russians lost ten soldiers killed in action and had dozens wounded. The Ukrainian reconnaissance unit, in turn, had no losses.

It seems like Ukrainians successfully capitalized on the Russian problems with logistics and almost completely eliminated the Russian bridgehead in front of Karmazynivka. Judging by the reported intensity of Ukrainian artillery strikes on the Russian bridgehead in front of Raihorodka, Ukrainians are aiming to reduce this salient next.

When it comes to the southern front, there are a lot of interesting developments. Two days ago, the Israeli ship Ams1 successfully broke through the Russian blockade of the Black Sea and entered the Ukrainian branch of the Danube River, despite threats from Russia.

Later, two more ships with Greek and Turkish-Georgian registrations ran the Russian blockade. It was reported that the safe passage of these vessels is being ensured by the American anti-ship patrol aircraft. Russian forces decided not to risk a direct confrontation and sent two warships to prevent other ships from following suit. Ukrainians responded yesterday by conducting a strike with marine kamikaze drones.

The situation became tricky for the Russians, and they decided to conduct a last-minute strike on the Ukrainian harbor in Izmail. As a result, Russians destroyed a huge amount of grain prepared for export. It was reported that Russians destroyed 40 thousand tons of grain and a refueling station. The latest reports suggest that the ships turned around as there was no cargo anymore, so, unfortunately, the Russian strike on civilian infrastructure was successful.

Russia’s drone attack destroys 40,000 tons of Ukrainian grain bound for Africa, China, and Israel

In the meantime, Ukrainians continue destroying Russian military bases and logistics. First of all, more information became available about yesterday’s drone strike on Sevastopol. The footage of the explosion was quickly geolocated, and the analysts concluded that the explosion happened on the Russian rocket base number 3413. Some sources released satellite footage of the base made prior to the strike. Based on the available imagery, Russians had a lot of rockets for air defense systems S-300, Strila, and Buk.

Today, Ukrainians conducted another successful strike on Crimea. The target became a huge Russian military base near Hvardiiske.

What is interesting is that Ukrainians tried to break through the Russian air defense in this region for a long time and may as well have more than a dozen attempts. It seems like, after the recent broad drone strike on the peninsula, Ukrainians finally developed the best possible trajectory and passed through the Russian air defense.

Russian analysts claimed that Ukrainians used a completely new type of drone that they still haven’t identified. Ukrainians reportedly already used these drones in a previous successful strike on Rozdolne. However, some sources speculated that the strike was conducted by the ballistic missile S-200 or Hrim-2, and the drones were just a decoy. In any case, judging by the explosion, Ukrainians blew up another ammunition depot.

This is already the seventh Russian military base in Crimea that Ukrainians destroyed just over the last month.

The success of the campaign, to a large extent, depended on the seemingly unsuccessful broad drone strikes. As it turned out, Ukrainians were achieving two objectives at the same time: creating a map of Russian air defense systems and forcing Russians to relocate their air defense away from certain bases in response to these decoy attacks. Once Ukrainians saw that Russians accommodated to the broad strikes, they unexpectedly changed their tactic, used a smaller number of drones, different models of drones, and modified trajectories, allowing them to break through the air defense and destroy Russian ammunition depots. In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.