Damaged Russian military base in Crimea: UK MoD says ‘incident likely to cause Russian military to revise threat perception’
In his daily newsletterThe British Ministry of Defense returns to the series of explosions that occurred on Tuesday 9 August at the Russian-operated Saky air base in south-west Crimea.
While this area, annexed by Russia in 2014, has so far remained free of conflict, “the original cause of the explosions is unclear, but the large mushroom clouds visible in witness video were almost certainly caused by the detonation of up to four uncovered ammunition dumps. ‘ the ministry wrote.
During the attack, “at least five Su-24 Fencer fighter-bombers and three Su-30 Flanker H general-purpose jets were almost certainly destroyed or badly damaged,” he noted, as the Ukrainian Air Force speaks for its share of nine destroyed Russian military aircraft.
“The loss of eight fighter jets represents a small part of the total aircraft fleet Russia needs to support the war. However, Saky was mainly used as a base for aircraft from the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet,” adds the UK MoD.
Therefore, he believes that “the fleet’s air and sea capacity is now significantly reduced” and that “the incident is likely to cause the Russian army to revise its perception of the threat” in Crimea.
Our journalist Emmanuel Grynszpan notes in this article that after the attack, which officially left one dead and fifteen wounded, “Russia immediately tried to minimize the scale of the event, speaking of a spontaneous detonation of ammunition,” and the hypothesis a successful Ukrainian rejected attack.
For their part, the Ukrainian authorities did not claim responsibility for the attack, but “Kyiv had waited several days before accepting responsibility for the destruction of the Moskva River [vaisseau amiral de la flotte russe de la mer Noire, coulé en avril] “.
Although Kyiv is reluctant to confirm its army’s involvement for the time being, a Ukrainian military official, speaking anonymously and whose word was leaked notably by the Washington Post and the New York Times, has nonetheless confirmed that Ukraine’s armed forces were indeed behind the strikes put.