Ukraine War, 8 March 2024

Hello everybody!

The situation is… a bit usual… bust mostly unusual.

Sure, the politics surrounding this war – no matter where (i.e. from Moscow via Kyiv, Warsaw, Berlin, to London and Paris, and then all the way to Washington DC) – remains the ultimate mess. So, this part is ‘usual’.

But, it’s the way the War in Ukraine is waged the last few days that’s ‘unusual’. I’m ‘sitting’ here, for days already, ‘waiting’ for new reports about major Russian ground assaults, but… ‘crickets’: no ‘news’ are coming in. What is coming in are reports about fighting from 4-5-6 or more days ago (like when the 92^nd Assault massacred an entire Russian mechanised assault group, destroying some 16 tanks and BMPs, and cuddling some 100+ orcs in the Klishchivka area). Indeed, after weeks of intensive activity and almost non-stop fighting, it’s relatively quiet.

Sure, there is fighting going on – for example: the Russians continue trying to approach Berdychi, Orlivka, and Tonenke (which now seems to bear the brunt of Russian assaults), all west of Avdiivka – but: there are very few ‘big style’ assaults on the ground. Instead, the mass of reports is about glide-bomb attacks, rocketing and shelling.

Front view at a Russia Su-34 fighter-bomber, armed with four UMPK glide bombs based on FAB-600M-62s.

For example…

Sumy… multiple villages along the border have been targeted the last few days. The town of Sumy too: two Shaheds smashed apartment buildings there, on 6 March.

Chuguiv, east of Kharkiv, was heavily hit by multiple S-300 SAMs deployed as ballistic missiles. Numerous residential buildings were damaged.

Kupyansk was rocketed by a volley from BM-27 Uragan multiple rocket launcher. Again, numerous residential buildings were damaged: two people were killed. Multiple other Ukrainian places from this area were targeted by glide-bombs, too; Kysslivka and Borova, for example.

Further south, in the area from Serebrianka via Kremina down to Bakhmut, Russian air strikes were reported from Torske, Bilohorivka, Serebrianka, Hryhorivka, Ivanivske, Chasiv Yar, Klishchivka, Konstantynivka, Andriivka, Druzhba, Toretsk…  ZSU positions between Spirne and Rozdolivka – south of Siversk - were heavily hit by multiple rocket launchers, too.

A scene of a Russian glide-bomb strike on ZSU positions north of Ivanivske.

If that is bad, the situation in the Avdiivka-Shakhtarsk area is even worse: Ocherretyne, Umanske, Tonenke, Krasnohorivka, Kostyantynivka, and Vuhledar (to name just a few) have all been targets of multiple glide-bombs and at least as many volleys from multiple rocket launchers. In this area, even places 10, 20, even 40 kilometres are heavily hit, too. See Pokrovsk (hit by four S-300s on 7 March), Kleban-Byk (hit by up to 4 UMPKs), Niu-York, Andriivka, Novoukrainka. This is also where the first confirmed hit on an Ukrainian M142 HIMARS launcher took place, four days ago.

To a certain degree, it is ‘logical’ this area is the worst-hit because multiple air bases in Russia – from Milerovo´, down to Rostov and Taganrog, and then Primorsko-Akhtarsk – are all relatively close, while Ukrainian air defences of this sector of the front are the weakest of all. And even if: the ‘all out’ effort by Ukrainian air defences to drive the VKS away was costly. Confirmed losses are including most of an entire S-300 SAM-site (including its fire-control radar), three old P-18 radars, at least one NASAMS launcher… and dozens of missiles…

A NASAMS launcher, as seen on its carrier truck. Usually, the launcher is unloaded before being deployed in action.

Further west, Ukrainian positions in the Staromaiorske area are heavily hit by MPK and UMPK glide bombs, as are Robotyne on the frontline, and (already ruined by earlier air strikes) Mala Tokmachka, north of it.

The right bank of Dnipro is heavily rocketed and shelled, too – and that all the way from Bilenke Pershe, via Nikopol, down to Mykolaivka, Kherson (city and suburbs), and Olekandrivka on the coast.

Further west, the night from 7 to 8 March was another one of Shaheds. AFAIK, at least 18 were shot down in the Odesa area alone, at least two on approaches to Mykolaiv, while a single Kh-59 guided missile and several S-300s deployed as ballistic missiles have hit the Kirovohrad area.

With other words: the Russians are ‘letting Ukrainians feel’ their firepower, keeping them under growing pressure, and imposing attrition. Read: they are causing losses. RUMINT has it that more than 20 Ukrainian troops are killed by attacks like listed above – every single day. More than 50 are wounded. Whatever the PSU might have managed with all of its claims for Russian fighter-bombers shot down, since 15 February, there’s no crisis on the other side: on the contrary, Ukrainians are reporting to have been hit by over 100 glide bombs yesterday alone. The number is likely to increase in the coming days, because the Russians have developed an UMPK-kit for their FAB-1500M-54 bombs – calibre 1500kg (including some 675kg of high explosives).

Newest version of the UMPK-kit for the FAB-1500M-54 bomb. Notable is the ‘ballistic cap’ covering the front of the weapon, to improve its aerodynamics (M-54-series of bombs are really anything else than ‘aerodynamically efficient’).

For comparison purposes, here a photograph from a Russian workshop where old FAB-1500M-54s are converted into UMPK glide bombs. Clearly visible are at least four such weapons, including two in the foreground, one hanging under a hoist while manhandled by workers, and one in the background to the right.

Currently unclear is what aircraft are used to deploy such heft weapons. As far as I know, a Su-34 can carry at least one (on a hardpoint under the centreline, in the ‘tunnel’ between its engine nacelles). However, some think that UMPKs with FAB-1500M-54s are actually deployed by Tu-22M-3 bombers. Certain is only that videos have appeared showing the terminal dive of at least one such glide bomb.

Above and below: two sequences from the same video, showing an incoming UMPK with the FAB-1500M-54 warhead, and then its blast.

…which in turn is making it clear that the expansion of Ukrainian air defences - and its total and durable effectiveness - still has a long way to go.