Ukraine admitted that in August it carried out missile strikes on military targets in Crimea, including the Saki airfield. This was confirmed in an article for Ukrinform by Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny and Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security Issues Mikhail Zabrodsky.
Zaluzhny and Zabrodsky write in the article that the majority of Russians do not feel the proximity of the war, its “remote” understanding leads to the fact that they perceive failures and losses painfully enough, they do not realize the cost of war. That, from their point of view, is what needs to be influenced.
“A convincing example of the correctness of this approach this year is the successful efforts of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to physically transfer hostilities to the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. We are talking about a series of successful missile strikes on the enemy's Crimean air bases, primarily on the Saki airfield," the authors of the article say.
The editorial notes that as a result of a “combined strike” on the Saki airfield on August 9, up to 10 Russian Su-24 and Su-30M aircraft were disabled.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also believes that the war will not end in 2022. He does not rule out that the Russians will advance to capture Zaporozhye and the Dnieper, and return to the idea of capturing Kyiv. The most realistic plans of the Russian military, from his point of view, are in the south – in the direction of Nikolaev, Odessa or Krivoy Rog.
In August, powerful explosions sounded at the Saki airfield near Novofedorovka, and the airbase was attacked. The media wrote that from 9 to 12 Russian aircraft burned down. Then Kiev hinted that the strikes were inflicted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that “there were no external influences,” and several aviation munitions detonated. Aviation equipment, according to the assurances of the Russian military, was not affected.