With Authorization to Fire ATACMS Rockets at Russia, Ukraine Has Hit Two S-400 Air-Defense Batteries in Three Days
Ukraine is using its ATACMS to great effect
We don’t know how many Army Tactical Missile System rockets Ukraine has received from the United States. Perhaps as few as 50, probably dozens of which it expended in attacks prior to this month.
But with new authorization to fire the 190-mile, precision-guided ATACMS against targets in and around Kursk Oblast in western Russia, the Ukrainians are making good use of whatever rockets they have left.
In back-to-back strikes on Saturday and Monday, ATACMs reportedly struck two separate Russian air force S-400 air-defense batteries in Kursk, where a 20,000-strong Ukrainian force is holding off 50,000 Russians and North Koreans in a 250-square-mile salient anchored by the town of Sudzha.
The S-400 is the Russian air force’s best air-defense system. Its missiles can hit aircraft and rockets at a distance of up to 250 miles.
The Saturday raid reportedly involved three of the 3,700-pound ATACMs, each of which dispenses as many as 950 grenade-sized submunitions. Nearly 2,900 of the submunitions rained down on an S-400 battery in Bol'shoe Zhirovo, 60 miles north of Sudzha.
That attack reportedly destroyed the 92N6E radar and two launchers—and killed eight crew.
The Monday raid targeted an S-400 battery positioned at Khalino air base near Kursk city, 50 miles from Sudzha. As many as eight ATACMS scattered up to 7,600 submunitions.
It’s not yet clear how much damage the later attack inflicted. If the S-400 battery is out of action, it “could create opportunities for future strikes with more cheap and numerous drones,” according to Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight.
While it’s possible Ukraine will run out of ATACMS before too long, the country is certainly maximizing the impact of the rockets it had at the moment the U.S. government gave it permission to fire them more freely.
In 33 months of wider warfare before the authorization for ATACMS raids on Kursk, the Ukrainians had destroyed around 16 S-400 launchers, four associated radars and several support vehicles. In the week since the authorization, it may have added several launchers, radars and vehicles to that tally.
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