Ukraine's attacks on Russian air bases with ATACMS, and Storm Shadow: Russian fighters less useful

Ukrainian drones carried out a major attack on the Millerovo airbase in Russia's Rostov region , with possible targets being the remaining Russian Air Force Su-25 attack aircraft that are still taking off from the airfield to attack the front lines in Ukraine.

At the same time, as Forbes analyst David Ax writes, the goal of such Ukrainian strikes is not always to destroy specific buildings or pieces of equipment. According to Tatarigami, founder of the Ukrainian analytical group Frontelligence Insight, "the goal is to steadily increase the cost of war for Russia" by instilling fear, increasing risk, and disrupting operations.

And, as Axe notes, the strategy is working. As Ukraine increases its use of deep-lethal munitions – both Western missiles like ATACMS, SCALP-EG, and Storm Shadow, and its own missiles and drones – the Russians are moving their forces further away from the front lines.

"Last year, commercial satellites spotted dozens of Su-25 and Su-30 fighters in Millerovo. This fall, the same satellites recorded only a few Su-25s remaining at the base," Aks notes. The analyst stresses that this evacuation may have saved valuable Russian aircraft from being destroyed in the recent drone attack. But this does not mean that the Ukrainian raids on the Rostov airfield are pointless.

"The raids present the Russians with a time-distance dilemma. Operating from bases 400 miles from the front instead of just 100 miles limits how often Russian fighter jets can fly during the week, and also limits the time they can spend over the front. Of course, the Russian Air Force keeps its planes. But in doing so, it makes the planes less useful," Axe explains.

This is "good math" for Ukraine, and it will improve as Ukrainian munitions penetrate deeper and more frequently into Russia, he concludes.

As media reported, Russian occupiers are building structures at the Belbek airbase to protect their aircraft in the temporarily occupied Crimea. At the same time, in the fall, various satellite images showed the process of building shelters for aircraft at other Russian military airfields. Among them are Kursk, Akhtubinsk, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Yeysk, Morozovsk, Millerovo and Krymsk.It appears that construction of at least 70 "bunkers" began almost simultaneously.