Expert on attack in Jankoy: ‘Show that Ukraine wants to retake Crimea’

Kiev has not officially commented on the overnight attack on the Dschankoy railway junction in Crimea, but the message should have gotten through to the Kremlin: the peninsula is not a safe haven for the Russian occupiers. Dzhankoy is the main logistical hub for Putin’s forces in Crimea and from there two railway lines lead to the occupied southern Ukraine. Until now, the small town seemed beyond the reach of most Ukrainian guns, but now the Russian military may have to reconsider.

“With a Himars-type missile launcher, it would have been very close to hitting Dzhankoy from Ukrainian territory,” writes US military expert Chuck Pfarrer. “But it is very unlikely that the Ukrainians would bring such a valuable piece of equipment so close to the Russian forces on the other bank of the Dnipro.”

Russian cruise missiles destroyed?

Mobile phone recordings from social networks, which are supposed to show the attack on Dschankoj, suggest that the attack was carried out with kamikaze drones. In this video, the distinctive engine sound of the incoming projectile can clearly be heard:

The large explosion when the projectile impacts also indicates that it hit its target and was not shot down beforehand. Russia claims the attack targeted a school and a grocery store, but Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency said a truckload of Russian Kalibr NK cruise missiles were destroyed in the attack.

The GUR accepted no responsibility for the attack. “The damage range of such weapons is more than 2,500 kilometers against land targets and 375 kilometers against sea targets,” the GUR wrote on its website.

It is not the first attack far into Russian-occupied Crimea. In mid-August, a substation in Dzhankoy and an ammunition depot in nearby Maiskoye were hit; Even then it was not clear with which weapons the attack was carried out. Just a week earlier, several explosions had hit Russia’s Saki air base in Crimea, killing several fighter jets.

Russia is still reeling from Crimea’s biggest blow to date: the attack on the Kerch Bridge into mainland Russia in October. War observers still do not interpret the most recent attack on Tuesday evening as commonplace.

“If Russia is carrying its Kalibr missiles on trains and the train is hit in Dzhankoy, there must be a huge information leak from the Russians,” former Italian soldier and military expert Thomas C. Theiner wrote on Twitter. Australian general and author Mick Ryan sees the attack as indicative of the Ukrainians’ covert struggle against strategic Russian targets. “The attack on Jankoy forces the Russians to rethink their defense of Crimea and beyond,” Ryan wrote on Twitter. “The attack, on the other hand, gives the Ukrainians important information about the reactions of the Russian occupiers in Crimea.”

According to Ryan, the attack is likely to further deplete the supply of Russian cruise missiles: “Several sources now report that the Russian military only has the missiles it can produce new,” says Ryan. The security expert also sees a clear political signal behind the attack: “The blow makes it clear that Ukraine wants to retake Crimea, even if some think that’s a bad idea. Moreover, Putin should be quite embarrassed by the attack in front of his ‘friend’ Xi Jinping,” said Ryan. The Chinese head of state is currently in Moscow for talks. (t online)