The Russian Federation takes off the planes within the ATACMS radius: Ukraine can get an advantage - research (photo)
Removal of restrictions on the use of Western weapons would allow the Ukrainian forces to expand the radius of such blows. About it writes "Institute of War Study" in the summary of August 24. The unnamed representative of Baiden's administration on national security recently stated that Ukrainian strikes using Western weapons for purposes in the Russian Federation would not be effective because the Russian military moved aircraft a little further from the Ukrainian border.
But, according to analysts, such an assessment does not take into account how Russian forces use shelters in the deep rear regions of the Russian Federation for a wide range of infrastructure. The American edition of Politico noted on August 23 that up to 90% of the air bomb carriers were moved in the Russian Federation a little further from the radius of the Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles.
The ISW confirms the redeployment of Russian aircraft to airfields outside the reach of Western long -range weapons, and reports of reducing the activity of Russian aviation throughout the theater of hostilities are consistent with information about the movement of Russian aviation. But, according to analysts, the redeployment of aircraft does not mean that the strikes of ATACMS for other Russian purposes will be in vain.
According to ISW estimates, at least 250 military and paramilitary facilities in the Russian Federation are within the reach of ATACMS missiles. But now the United States is forbidding Ukrainian forces to use ATACMS missiles to strikes for military purposes, only Himars installations with GMLRS ammunition are allowed. At best, Ukraine is allowed to attack only 20 out of 250 Russian objects using ATACMS. Only 17 of these 250 objects are aerodromes.
And it is unlikely that all military assets of the remaining 233 objects were also moved to safe areas. Many of these military goals that are within the AtacMS reach are large military bases, communication stations, logistics centers, repair shops, fuel warehouses, ammunition depots and headquarters that would be extremely difficult or even impossible to relocate them quickly or even impossible .
ISW has posted satellite images of some of the Russian objects to show that it will be difficult to reinforce protection or massively relocate military resources. It is not necessary for Ukraine to strike for every Russian military facility in the Russian Federation, which are in the area of reach of the weapon set in order to exert significant operational pressure on the Russian military forces.
The abolition of current Western restrictions will be a serious threat to the Russian Federation and will force the Russian military command to move assets in deep rear to protect against Ukrainian blows.
Successful use of HIMARS in the occupied areas of Ukraine in the summer and autumn of 2022 ultimately forced the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to disperse many of these assets - there were failures in Russian operations throughout the theater of hostilities, which significantly helped to stop the pace of promotion of the Russian Federation until the end of 2022.