A Sukhoi Su-30SM flying from Khalino air base in Kursk.Wikimedia Commons
Khalino air base, within the town of Kursk within the oblast of the similar title, is the nearest army airfield to Sudzha, the border the city that’s the locus of Ukraine’s wonder invasion of Kursk Oblast that kicked off on Tuesday.
Khalino hosts the Russian air pressure’s 14th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. The regiment’s 24 Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter-bombers can elevate KAB go with the flow bombs, which weigh as much as 3 lots and vary 25 miles or farther on pop-out wings.
No quicker had the ones 5 Ukrainian brigades rolled around the border on Tuesday than the Russian air pressure started pummeling the brigades, and their bases in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, with round 50 KABs an afternoon—part the KABs the Russians drop all alongside the 700-mile entrance line of Russia’s 29-month wider conflict on Ukraine.
The Ukrainians understand how necessary Khalino is. Which is why they’ve been attacking it tougher for the reason that week prior to the invasion.
Khalino is solely 65 miles from the border, hanging it inside of vary of a wide selection of Ukrainian deep-strike guns together with ballistic and cruise missiles and explosive drones. The Ukrainians have struck the bottom a number of occasions since February 2022.
A drone raid on Khalino in December 2022 precipitated a hearth on the base’s gas depot. Some other assault 8 months later concerned Ukraine’s distinctive cardboard assault drones.
The assaults escalated. On July 31, simply six days prior to the Ukrainian invasion, Ukrainian army Neptune cruise missiles struck Khalino’s ammunition depot and burned a part of it to the bottom, perhaps destroying any KABs saved there.
11 days later, Ukrainian troops have captured just about 400 sq. miles of Kursk Oblast—combating via a barrage of KABs that broken or destroyed a number of Ukrainian cars. On Saturday evening or Sunday morning, a Ukrainian missile was once it sounds as if streaking towards Khalino when it fell brief and struck an condominium development in Kursk, injuring 13 Russian civilians.
The risk to the 14th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment and some other Russian forces at Khalino will best build up so long as the Ukrainians regulate that swathe of Kursk adjoining to the border.
In the event that they attacked Khalino from within the invasion zone, the Ukrainians may just goal the air base with their shorter-ranged ground-launched rockets together with M30/31s fired by way of American-made Prime-Mobility Artillery Rockets Programs.
It’s no longer transparent the Ukrainian military would possibility its valuable HIMARS that with regards to the entrance line. But when it had been keen, it would hit Khalino tougher than ever.
Observe me on Twitter. Take a look at my web site or a few of my different paintings right here. Ship me a safe tip. Resources:1. Mark Krutov: Particular Kherson Cat: Conflict File: TASS:
