On Saturday, a Russian drone took up station over a Ukrainian army training base in Cherkas’ke, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast 80 miles from the front line of Russia’s three-year wider war on Ukraine.
Critically, there was no camouflage netting at the base. No earthworks to shelter Ukrainian trainees as they milled about in broad daylight. No local air defenses to swat down Russian drones. Base commanders were habitually “indifferent,” one soldier who spent some time at Cherkas’ke told Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butusov.
Cued by the drone, an Iskander ballistic missile streaked in. Butusov claimed 32 Ukrainian soldiers died and another 100 were wounded.
Three days later, the Ukrainians exacted their revenge. A drone from the Ukrainian 14th Unmanned Aerial Systems Regiment circled over a Russian training base that, according to the regiment, was “deep in the rear” in southern Ukraine. Presumably in Kherson or Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
The Ukrainian Tavria Operational Strategic Grouping opened fire, apparently with a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems wheeled launcher, which fires 660-pound precision-guided rockets as far as 57 miles.
Thirty Russian trainees died as submunitions rained down, the 14th UAS Regiment claimed.
Trainees under attack
It was the ninth attack on Russian training bases in 14 months. On Nov. 21, around a dozen Russian troops piled out of civilian vans somewhere in Zaporizhzhia. A Ukrainian drone circled overhead, silently observing.
A HIMARS lobbed a single rocket. It struck within yards of the Russian trainees, peppering them and their vehicles with lethal fragments. The drone peered closer—and counted at least five dead or badly wounded Russians.
In seven other strikes since February 2024—in Zaporizhzhia in the south and Donetsk Oblast in the east, mostly—Ukrainian batteries killed hundreds of Russian trainees. Russian strikes on Ukrainian trainees are much less frequent, and overall much less bloody.
If there’s anything that might save the Russians from themselves as they continue parading their troops out in the open within the range of Ukrainian rockets, it’s U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration has frozen all further U.S. aid to Ukraine—a punitive act in the aftermath of a disastrous White House press conference on Friday, during which Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not thanking them enough for past aid.
Barring a resumption of U.S. aid, Ukraine’s 40 or so HIMARS will eventually run out of rockets—unless one of Ukraine’s loyal allies can supply compatible rockets.
The HIMARS are Ukraine’s best weapons for these deep strikes targeting vulnerable Russian training grounds. But they may fall silent in the coming months for want of ammunition.
Read the full article here