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Originally Posted by opendoor
Isn't the Storm Shadow range something like 500km? About 1/3rd of Ukraine is within that distance of Sevastapol, so I don't think it would have needed to have been launched from the Black Sea. Or are the ones they received shorter-range?
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You can't use Storm Shadows easily over land where they will be easily intercepted in areas where Russia has high levels of detection and anti-air systems. They are not invincible, and have been intercepted. Most of the Storm Shadow damage occurred early when Ukraine first received them, as Russia had not planned for the longer range missiles (similar to how HIMARS changed the game for an amount of time).
Ukraine recently took over oil platforms a couple of days ago, which were used by Russia as early detection systems against missiles and drones, preventing Ukraine from effective attacks on Crimea. It's speculated (Ukraine will not divulge directions of attack) the attack came from Snake Island and platforms direction now under Ukrainian control instead of behind the land based front lines. Let's not forget that most of Russia's Black Sea fleet is currently hiding at Sevastopol or relocated to other ports like Novorossiysk for fear of getting sunk.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/21513#...%20Black%20Sea.
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The ministry underscored that these platforms not only “control valuable hydrocarbon resources” but, like Snake Island, also “serve as forward deployment bases, helipads, and potential sites for long-range missile systems.”
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This picture provide a visual on why this matters when looking at Sevastopol (UA claims to have taken 4 of them).
It's no shock that as soon as the oil platforms were in Ukrainian control, that Crimean attacks expanded significantly and to great effect, using weaponry that does not depend on Starlink to function.
Not sure if I remember the video posted, but there was an insane drone footage of a Su-30 jet engaging patrol boats at sea, that's from this operation. Ukraine actually damaged the Su-30 using MANPADS and gunfire, yes literally gunfire. There's a POV video from the boat as well as it engaged the jet.
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During the operation, a skirmish occurred between Ukrainian special forces on boats and a Russian Su-30 fighter jet.
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There's reports of new fresh attacks on Sevastopol, and yesterday a S-400 anti air defense system got blown up after being baited by drones, only to be blown up by cruise missiles after it depleted its weaponry.