Ukraine War, 17 November 2022: Surovikin’s Billion-Dollar Strikes

Today I’ll try to continue catching up with developments of the last few days. I know (or at least: I’m aware), there are important developments on several of frontlines in this war, and I intend to cover them, don’t worry. However, and once again, I’ll focus on affairs related to air- and missile warfare. The reason is that they have a potential of effecting dramatic changes in the overall flow of this conflict. Arguably, this was not yet the case, but one can never know: long-term consequences cannot be excluded. 15 November During the afternoon of 15 November 2022, Russia launched one of it

s biggest cruise missile strikes on Ukraine so far. It did so at the time the Director of the CIA, Bill Burns (who met the chief of the FSB, Sergey Naryshkin, in Ankara, Turkey, a day before), was meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Meanwhile, I’m almost completely certain that, once again, this operation was developed and run by General of the Army Sergey Surovikin. It seems that he is something like ‘Putin’s man for this war’: somebody Putin trusts more than either Shoygu or Gerasimov (or any other generals), and thus has a ‘direct approach to the president’. This a

ppears to be confirmed by reports in the Russian social media, in which Surovikin is heavily supported by Kadyrov and Prigozhin — and the two are some of most important Putin’s allies left. (As for ‘w

hy is that so’: no clear idea yet. Could be it’s ‘just Surovikin’s imposing appearance’; could be he’s not complaining but doing what he can with available means…. of course, it could be simply because Surovikin’s hands are as ‘dirty’ as Putin’s, though….) The strike began with several Tu-95MS bombers of the 121st and the 182nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiments, and Tu-160 bombers of the 184th Guards Poltavsko-Berlinskiy Red Banner Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment releasing Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles — apparently from their ‘usual stations’ above the Caspian Sea Official Kyiv mentioned the involvement of the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment, too. This unit is equipped with Tu-22M-3 bombers, though: if involved, these would have released their old Kh-22s (or Kh-32s, whi

ch is a slightly improved variant of the old weapon, but of which very few are available). However, so far I was not able to find any reports indicating intercepts/shoot-downs or hits by Kh-22/32s on that day. Two or three warships of the Black Sea Fleet should have been involved as well: they were releasing 3M54 Kalibr cruise missiles. The movement of the Russian heavy bombers and Russian warships in the Black Sea are both closely monitored by intelligence agencies of NATO, and thus there was ample warning. To make sure: NATO was tracking the movement of the Russian bombers already when tensions were not as high as they are since the Russian aggression on Ukraine, but is even more valid in these days. Reason? They can deploy nuclear weapons. Correspondingly, NATO is particularly keen to k

eep an eye on them. In this case, NATO’s caution resulted in Ukrainian air defence being put on alert well before the air raid sirens were sounded throughout the country, around 15.40hrs local time. Even then, the sheer size of the Russian attack did come as surprise, then over the following 15–20 minutes air raid alert was sounded in at least 11 out of 24 oblasts of Ukraine. This is the reason why the number of known casualties was minimal: people had enough time to take cover