The Great Russian Jet Evacuation Has Begun
As the Ukrainians fire more rockets, the Russians are moving their warplanes away from vulnerable bases
The United States shipped at least a hundred long-range Army Tactical Missile System rockets to Ukraine starting in mid-March, right before Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. Congress finally ended their six-month blockade of $61 billion in fresh aid to Ukraine.
The Pentagon paid for the March shipment with $300 million in savings from a previously-approved U.S. contract for weapons for Ukraine; it paid for a possible second shipment of ATACMs, last week, with some of the recently-approved funds.
The Ukrainians wasted no time lobbing the rockets—which range as far as 190 miles and dispense hundreds or even a thousand submunitions, depending on the model—at Russian air bases across occupied Ukraine and in southern and western Russia. An April 16 ATACMS raid on Dzhankoy air base, 100 miles from the front line in occupied Crimea, destroyed four launchers from an S-400 air-defense battery.
The Russians are spooked. We know this because, on and just before Wednesday, the Russian air force—and possible the navy—began redeploying warplanes away from Ukrainian territory, clearly aiming to mitigate the risk from ATACMS and other Ukrainian deep-strike weapons, including long-range drones.
“The adversary's command has initiated the repositioning of operational-tactical and army aviation assets from forward air bases, including those situated deep within the operational theater, to the interior of Russian territory following the delivery of long-range strike capabilities such as ATACMS missiles to the Ukrainian defense forces,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported.
“The overall strength of enemy aviation units deployed directly at forward air bases has decreased from 303 to 305 units of combat and special aviation to 280 to 283 units,” CDS added.
CDS tracked a few dozen movements—including:
Four Sukhoi Su-30SM fighters and four Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft moving from Eisk (100 miles from the front) to Privolzhsky and Armavir (respectively 500 and 250 miles from the front)
Eight Su-25s from Taganrog (100 miles from the front) redeploying to Budenovsk (400 miles from the front)
Four Mikoyan MiG-31BM interceptors from Primorsko-Akhtarsk (200 miles from the front) relocating to Privolzhsky (500 miles from the front)
Two Sukhoi Su-35 fighters from Tikhoretsk (200 miles from the front) moving to Akhtubinsk (400 miles from the front)
Five Su-30SMs from Krymsk (200 miles from the front) relocating to Privolzhsky (500 miles from the front)
Four Su-25s from Millerovo (100 miles from the front) redeploying to Budenovsk (400 miles from the front)
Five Su-30SMs and five Sukhoi Su-24M bombers from Saki (100 miles from the front) moving to Eisk, strangely—perhaps temporarily before staging father to the east
Two Su-35s from Voronezh (150 miles from the front) relocating to Lipetsk (200 miles from the front)
Seven Su-35s leaving Kushchevskaya (200 miles from the front)
The redeployments should get those planes out of range of ATACMS, although they remain vulnerable to the farther-flying Ukrainian strike drones.
The downside is that, since the Russian air force does not operate a meaningful number of aerial tankers, adding hundreds of miles to a jet’s flight path significantly reduces how much of the front line it can reach and how long it can linger there.
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