At the Russian city of Belgorod, flames roil over fuel depots hit by rockets fired by attack … [+] helicopters.
It would sound like impossible fanboy fiction if there weren’t recordings displaying it genuinely taking place.
Namely, videos and photographs posted on the social media page Belinter reward allegedly Ukrainian wrestle helicopters at 5 AM native time on April 1 inflicting huge anxiousness to a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod.
Belgorod lies correct 35 miles northwest of Ukraine’s 2d city of Kharkiv, and for prolonged has been a staging floor for Russian armies which invaded Ukraine on February 24. In thought, it have to beget fallen neatly contained in the umbrella of Russia’s famously elaborate constructed-in air protection system.
But a recording reveals two attack helicopters unloading flurries of 80-millimeter S-8 rockets into the blazing fuel depot with impunity.
The attack brought on huge fireballs to the sunshine skies and columns of smoke to pour into the air. Allegedly, eight 2,000 cubic meter fuel storage tanks had been space ablaze. The regional governor claimed two staff had been injured in the attack, but the proudly owning Rosneft company said there had been no accidents.
One other video suggests two Mi-24 Hind gunships, a form operated both by the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, appear to beget participated in the attack.
The Ukrainian Army was as soon as estimated to operate 34 Mi-24s initially of 2022, including gun-armed Mi-24Ps, cannon-armed Mi-24Vs and Mi-24VPs, and Mi-24PU-1s specially modernized by Ukraine. All of these objects can (and frequently plot) mount B8V20 rocket pods on their stub wings, every carrying 20 S-8 rockets.
Mykolayiv, UKRAINE: A Ukrainian Air Force MI-24 helicopter launches missiles at some level of strategic … [+] repeat-staff “Neat sky” exercises on the Shirokiy Lan fluctuate, shut to the southern city of Mykolayiv, 22 September, 2006. Ukraine’s pro-Russian Top Minister Viktor Yanukovych said 19 September 2006 Ukrainians did now not beef up NATO membership and, thus, he would now not eliminate his call for a slowdown on becoming a member of the protection force alliance. AFP PHOTO/ GENIA SAVILOV (Photograph credit ranking have to aloof learn GENIA SAVILOV/AFP by method of Getty Footage)
Ukraine’s Mi-24 had been viewed in action handiest assuredly since battling began on February 24, particularly strafing Russian paratroopers in the Fight of Antonov Airport shut to Kyiv in the first day of the battle.
Exact one Ukrainian Mi-24 and one Mi-8 had been confirmed destroyed as of March 31 by researchers, though steady losses would possibly perhaps perhaps honest neatly be better.
The obvious attack flies in the face of extinct protection force files. Correct, low-flying plane using terrain to masks their methodology would possibly perhaps perhaps also be subtle to detect. Nonetheless appropriate wrestle air patrols by overflying fighters and A-50 airborne early warning plane would possibly perhaps perhaps beget supplied a superior overhead attitude using doppler radar to detect such an attack.
Moreover, rapid fluctuate air defenses, including man-portable missiles and automobile-mounted systems, pose genuinely extensive threats to helicopters, and certainly beget accounted for many of Russian helicopter losses. And one would count on the Russian armies staging from Belgorod would beget extensive rapid-fluctuate air protection interposed between that city and Ukrainian forces.
That said, the kind of failure of Russian air defenses would possibly perhaps perhaps be of a part with their underwhelming efficiency in the battle to this level.
The attack would possibly perhaps perhaps impair the mobility of Russian forces in this sector ,which already are reeling from blows by Ukraine’s 92nd and 93rd mechanized brigades at Chuhuiv and Trostyanets.
It additionally comes at a time that Russian aerial bombing is an increasing number of concentrating on Ukrainian fuel depots in an effort to floor Kyiv’s supreme plane and lower the operational mobility of Ukrainian floor forces which would possibly perhaps perhaps honest explore to counterattack give a select to troops in Jap Ukraine, the save Moscow claims it plans to focal level future protection force efforts.
TOPSHOT – A member of the Ukrainian special forces stands as a fuel region burns after Russian … [+] attacks in town of Kharkiv on March 30, 2022, at some level of Russia’s invasion launched on Ukraine. (Photograph by FADEL SENNA / AFP) (Photograph by FADEL SENNA/AFP by method of Getty Footage)
No topic many Russian sources confirming the attack took spot, on the time of writing Ukraine’s protection force has but to scream accountability. This, mixed with monumental photographs of the attack, has led some to speculate Moscow would possibly perhaps perhaps need staged the attack in opposition to itself as a fraudulent flag operation to reinvigorate public beef up for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
A couple of days prior, an explosion in a Belgorod ammunition depot was as soon as initially alleged to be from a Ukrainian missile attack, but then was as soon as clarified to had been an accident.
The fraudulent flag thought for the helicopter attack appears to be like problematic given the monumental extent of the anxiousness, and the validity of a fuel depot as a aim of protection force fee.
Claims that the Belgorod attack marks the first attack by Ukraine on Russian soil are additionally wrong, as Ukraine had already acknowledged striking Millerovo airbase in Russia using Tochka ballistic missiles, destroying on the least one Russian fighter.
