Ukraine Pounds Frontline Russian Air-Defenses in Three Days

Are they leveling the ground to host the Mirage jets from France?

Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russian air-defense systems with remarkable vigor following the Biden administration’s approval of long-range ATACMS missile deliveries in February last year. While Ukraine’s targeting of these assets is not new — being a continuous aspect of the ongoing conflict — the scale of destruction achieved in the past three days is unprecedented.

If you’re near a seat belt, now might be a good time to buckle up. The recent tally of decimated units includes one S400 system, two S300 systems, one OSA, several BUK-M3s, two Buk-M2s, one Buk-M1, two Pantsir-S1s, two TOR-M2s, and a few radar units.

The destruction of these air-defense units did not occur in a single region or location. Instead, the attacks spanned from Kursk at the northernmost end of the frontline to Kherson Oblast at the southernmost edge. All these incidents took place within the last three days. While global attention was fixated on Ukraine’s strikes against some of Russia’s largest refineries deep within their territory, a significant number of frontline air defenses were simultaneously targeted and destroyed.

Euromaidan press reporting on the attacks from the frontline said that the “Ukrainians accomplished this through the work of resistance groups, like Atesh, operating behind enemy lines, providing real-time intelligence on…