Shocking is the death of dozens of people in a Dnipro apartment building by the impact of a Kh-22 aircraft carrier killer, a naval missile modified for use against land-based targets. It is already becoming common practice for the Russian armed forces to retune naval missiles, or anti-aircraft guns S-300 or S-400, to attack targets on the ground.
Sergei Surovikin, dubbed ‘General Apocalypse’ by the Russian media, was the one who initiated this tactic of systematic attacks against the Ukrainian rearguard. His dismissal was not due to the poor results achieved but internal power struggles as we see his replacement, Valeri Gerasimov, maintain the same bloody methods, but throughout history these tactics have yielded little result. Destruction of infrastructure is never enough to eliminate the enemy. What has been destroyed is rebuilt, better protected and much more hidden, and the civilian population does not become demoralized and does not surrender, but cries out for revenge.
The firepower used by Putin is actually quite low. A Kh-22 missile has an explosive charge of 950 kilograms. An S-300 can carry between 70 and 140, depending on the version. A Kalibr cruise missile, 500. An Iskander ballistic missile, 480. However, any British or German city during World War II would endure a hundred tons of explosive bombs in one night, or two hundred, or even more. At the same time, if you run out of surface-to-surface missiles and have to improvise with anti-ship or anti-aircraft missiles, it’s not surprising that a lot of accuracy is lost.
The lack of resources is becoming almost humiliating for a military force that prided itself on being second in the world. It is normal for ammunition stocks to be low in peacetime and to run out quickly. The real problem is the weak or non-existent production capacity shown by Russian industry. It is embarrassing for Putin to have to buy hundreds of drones from Iran when, in theory, Russia should be able to design and produce tens of thousands of drones, saturating the skies over Ukraine with them.
Russia’s deindustrialization began around 1980, when the USSR began to depend on its oil exports to offset the increasing inefficiency of the system. The process has accelerated and worsened during Putin’s 22 years of misrule. To secure his personal power at all costs, Putin “castrated” the entire country, dismantling the administration and institutions, while much of the economy was devoured by oligarchs affiliated with the regime. Therefore, while Russia has enormous resources, the Putin regime is unable to put them into action.
In short, Putin is wasting what little firepower he has left on attacks of little or no military effectiveness. But in Russian military thinking there has always been a tendency to believe that brutality + numerical superiority = effectiveness. And so they have lost many wars, just as they are going to lose this one.
Source: La Verdad
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