“While damage assessment is still occurring, it is confirmed as a direct hit,” a Ukrainian military source tells Sky News.
A Ukrainian warplane has for the first time fired a weapon that struck a target inside Russia, a Ukrainian military source has told Sky News.
The source said a “Russian command node” was hit on Sunday in the area of Belgorod, western Russia.
Belgorod is close to the border with northeastern Ukraine.
It was not immediately clear what type of munition was used in the attack, including whether or not it had been a Western weapon.
This is new and could point to gaps in russian air defence
In case you haven’t noticed, Ukraine has been making craters of Russian air defenses in recent weeks.
Just paving the way for the freshly incoming F16.
yeah but mostly in crimea from what i’ve heard
Which means Russia has to move assets from other parts of the country to replace the destroyed equipment, creating gaps Ukraine can exploit, This reinforces the idea of how fragile Russia’s defenses are
Drones have been making their way 5-600 miles inside Russia to numerous air bases and oil refineries. It’s remarkable that they can do this without getting shot down.
Even where the systems still exist, they just don’t seem to be active / effective.
Scalp/storm shadow or HARM probably.
Ukrainians have developed their own JDAM-ER analogue, AASM is also a possibility. Belgorod is close enough to border to be in range
Jdam er and aasm primarily use gps for targeting. And have been rendered pretty much useless under Russias constant gps jamming. But if there was a window I bet they’ll use anything they can.
It was not immediately clear what type of munition was used in the attack, including whether or not it had been a Western weapon.
This is the perfect example of reporting before the fog of war has cleared. Whether or not it was a Western weapon would have been useful information if they had just waited for either clarification or to be told there would be no clarification.
Honestly I find that information irrelevant and that section could have been removed entirely. The actual point of the story was that a Ukrainian fighter jet attacked a target inside Russia.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reporting the facts that you do have when you have them and are confident of your sources.
Acknowledging remaining open questions that you don’t have answers to yet, is a bonus.
A perfect example of reporting before the fog of war clears would be reporting completely erroneous information as factual. So unless you’re suggesting that a Ukrainian fighter jet did NOT in fact strike a target inside Russia, then this isn’t the “perfect example” you’re looking for.
But it’s the 24h news cycle. They have to say something before the other guys!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Under new guidance approved by President Joe Biden, American munitions can be used on Russian soil to help defend the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.
Lord Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, has been less specific, merely saying it was up to Ukraine to decide how they use British weapons - such as Storm Shadow cruise missiles that can be fired by Ukrainian jets.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the military source told Sky News: "A Ukrainian Air Force (UAF) mission has struck a Russian command node in Belgorod.
“By thwarting Russian shipments of ammunition and key military supplies this strike will directly support Ukrainian troops in their ongoing fight,” the source said.
Read more from Sky News:TV doctor found deadSouth Korea fights back against sewage balloonsUkrainian athlete overtakes rival as she celebrates early
Separately, Kyiv’s main military intelligence service said its forces had hit an ultra-modern Russian warplane stationed on an air base nearly 400 miles from the frontline, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
The original article contains 571 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
