Strike late Thursday was latest in mounting campaign against Russian air-defense systems, war planes and other military infrastructure
By Ian Lovett and Nikita Nikolaienko
May 24, 2024
The Wall Street Journal
KYIV—Ukraine hit a Russian military complex in Crimea with U.S.-provided long-range missiles Thursday night, the latest in a mounting series of strikes aimed at slowing the Russian war machine. The missile strike hit a communications center of Russian air-defense forces in the city of Alushta, according to a Ukrainian defense official. Crimean social media channels reported several explosions in the coastal city, with one video showing a large explosion, but the extent of the damage couldn’t immediately be established.
While Ukraine is struggling to hold back Russian forces along the northern and eastern fronts, ATACMS, which stands for Army Tactical Missile System, has allowed Kyiv to menace Russia’s hold on Crimea, focusing largely on high-value targets such as air-defense systems, jet fighters and warships.
In April, using a longer-range variant of ATACMS that Washington began to secretly supply Kyiv this year, Ukrainian forces hit an airfield in Crimea, destroying several advanced Russian air-defense missile launchers and radars, according to Ukrainian officials. They hit another Crimean airfield last week, appearing to take out several aircraft, according to satellite images.
This week, Ukrainian military officials said they’d hit the port in Sevastopol, damaging a warship. While officials didn’t say what weapons had been used, Russian officials in Crimea said they had shot down nine ATACMS missiles the night of the attack.
On Thursday night, Sergei Aksyonov, a Russian-installed official in Crimea, wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian missiles had killed two “bystanders,” and an “empty commercial property” was damaged. He didn’t comment on any damage to the Alushta communications center.
Mark Cancian, a former artillery officer in the U.S. Marine Corps now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that Ukraine would likely focus on deep strikes while it tries to rebuild manpower in hopes of launching a more robust counteroffensive next year. Crimea, he said, was an appealing target because it has an abundance of fixed military facilities—such as airfields and ports—that cannot easily be camouflaged or spread-out. “They might be able to squeeze it,” Cancian said. “I don’t think they can cut it off, but they can make Crimea uncomfortable.”
Ukraine has twice damaged the Kerch bridge, which connects Crimea to Russia, leading Russia to halt using it for military shipments because it fears they will get hit, Western intelligence analysts believe. Instead, they are moving supplies by rail through other occupied parts of Ukraine.
In the U.S., some members of Congress have been pressuring the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to fire ATACMS and other U.S.-made weapons into Russian territory. The ban on doing so, military analysts say, has impeded Ukraine’s efforts to halt Moscow’s recent invasion of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
George Barros, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said the U.S. could immediately alter the battlespace in Kharkiv if the U.S. would lift this ban, which lets Moscow move troops and weapons to the front far more efficiently than they can in other regions, where they have to disperse and camouflage positions behind the line. “Ukrainians are not able to engage them until they cross the international border,” he said.
Daniel Michaels contributed to this article.
Ian Lovett is the national religion reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He is based in Los Angeles. Prior to joining the Journal, he spent five years at the New York Times, where he covered the West Coast and major breaking news across the country, including the Boston Marathon bombing, the the San Bernardino terrorist attack and the deadly mudslide in Oso, Washington. He grew up outside Boston and received a BA in English from Amherst College.