Russia-Ukraine 3.25: Ukrainian forces strike two Russian landing ships and communications center details, Houthis hit a Chinese oil tanker
Original Xiaolean on this day 2024-03-25 20:52
Morning Mist / Repost
Original Creator: Sue Fei
Dear readers and friends, this is a series of original articles on the war situation between Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan on March 25, 2024.
Today we will first talk about the news of yesterday's large-scale attack on the Crimean Peninsula by the Ukrainian army, then talk about the Russian army's air strikes on Ukraine, then talk about the news that the Houthis hit a Chinese oil tanker, and finally a briefing on the situation of the battle.
Yesterday's article revealed that the Ukrainian army used cruise missiles to launch attacks on Russian targets in Crimea, and it is said that two landing ships of the Black Sea Fleet "Yamal" and "Azov" were hit, and the communication center of the Black Sea Fleet was also hit.
Now there is further news. Satellite photos show a huge hole in the roof of the communications center:
Previous satellite photos of the building look like this:
At least 3 missiles are said to have hit the building.
Photos taken by locals sitting in their cars also appeared online. Photographs show a fire inside the building, black smoke blackening all the rooms, and the soft stuff must have been finished.
There were also missile wreckage picked up near Sevastopol. Judging by the photo, this is the wreckage of a French cruise missile "Scarp".
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, a large hole was punched out of the upper deck of the landing ship "Yamal", and water ingress caused the starboard side to roll.
Regarding the two landing ships hit, so far there are only a small number of eyewitness videos, which show several powerful explosions after the missile hit, but the distance is too far to be used as a basis for an accurate assessment. Later, when satellite imagery becomes public, it will be possible to more accurately assess the severity of the losses of the Russians.
As a result of this attack, only seven landing ships remain in the Black Sea Fleet, including those transferred from the Baltic Fleet and the Northern Fleet to the Black Sea before the start of the war in February 2022. The Black Sea Fleet is now certainly not capable of launching effective landing operations on the Black Sea coast, nor is it capable of carrying out continuous supply and transport tasks. They did not even dare to go to sea now, so they could only stay in the dock or berth trembling.
According to some pro-Russian bloggers, the attack hit not only the large landing ships "Azov" and "Yamal", but also the intelligence ship "Ivan Cools".
Later, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy also said that the two landing ships were definitely hit, and now it is possible to hit a third unit, namely the "Ivan Kurs". The information is being verified.
British Defense Minister Schapples commented on this: "Russia has been sailing in the Black Sea since 1783, but is now forced to limit its fleet to one port. Even there, Putin's ships are sinking"!
According to some people on the Russian side, the strike launched by the Ukrainian army on Crimea on the night of the 23rd local time was the largest in recent times. About ten explosions occurred near Sai Harbor, and four more were heard at 10:29 p.m.
Later, a Crimean Telegram channel called "Wind" reported that something was burning near the airfield and Kozacha Bay, where the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade is located.
Nevertheless, the strikes carried out by the Ukrainian army were completely just, and they were not only on Ukrainian soil, but also aimed only at military targets. In total, only 1 person was killed and 4 were injured in this wave of strikes, which shows that the Ukrainian army carefully chose the target and used force.
In this paragraph, we talk about the Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's power system over the past few days. According to the head of the Ukrainian state electricity company, Vladimir Kudritsky, the Ukrainian power system has suffered losses of at least 100 million euros as a result of the recent attacks.
In addition, due to the Russian army's attack on Ukraine's power generation and transmission capacity, a large number of thermal power plants and hydropower facilities have been affected, and the power generation capacity has been lost by 50%, although there are backup plans in advance and engineers are also working to repair them, but some facilities may take months to return to their original state, and Ukraine is likely to experience power shortages by this summer due to the loss of power generation capacity.
In Kharkiv, as a result of Russian attacks, all local substations and thermal power plants were destroyed. Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said that currently, about 40% of residential buildings in Kharkiv are without power, but it is impossible to say when power will be fully restored. The mayor concluded that the situation was "very difficult".
After 13:00 local time today, the Russian Aerospace Forces fired three guided aerial bombs at the Konotop district of the Bilopilia community of the Sumy region. The attacks resulted in the destruction of electrical infrastructure, private homes and commercial buildings.
According to the Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz: "The enemy's attack destroyed one of the infrastructures of underground gas storage in Ukraine.
Yesterday we mentioned two strikes carried out by the Russian army on the power infrastructure of the Lviv region. Today there is new and outrageous news: Russian terrorists first attacked this facility with cruise missiles or Shahid suicide drones, and then a few hours later they attacked this target again with "Kinzhal" hypersonic missiles!
Obviously, this was planned. It is unlikely that the terrorists will assess the effectiveness of the first attack in just a few hours, and then strike again. It is more likely that they thought of this set of combos from the beginning: while Ukrainian rescuers were working next to the rubble, launch "Kinzhal" and strike here again with lightning speed, inflicting further blows on the ruins and rescuers!
Vicious! Vicious! Russia's viciousness can be seen!
Moreover, this is not the first time that the Russians have used this terrorist tactic. In the missile attack on Odessa on March 15, 2024, they also hit an infrastructure facility twice, killing and injuring a large number of rescue workers. A total of 21 people were killed in that attack, and some of the city's leaders, including former deputy mayor Serhiy Tetyukhin, and a 29-year-old firefighter, Denis Kolesniko, died from a second missile during the rescue!
Compared with this kind of bitter viciousness, ISIS-K's approach outside Moscow is only nano-terrorism, and the indiscriminate and overwhelming terrorist attacks that Russia has inflicted on Ukraine for many years are special terrorism and giant terrorism! There is a world of difference between the two!
Fortunately, Russia's serial strikes on Lviv yesterday were cracked by the Ukrainian air defense network. In a very short time, the Ukrainian servicemen detected the launch of the "Kinzhal" missile and judged the landing point, and then notified the rescuers at the scene of the incident to evacuate urgently. In the end, the Kinzhal missile missed, without causing any further casualties.
The wreckage of a number of Ukrainian drones was found in Russia. Let's see, what does the Ukrainian drone that attacked a Russian refinery look like?
First there is the wreckage of a Ukrainian Lyutyi drone:
With a range of 1,000 kilometers, the drone is capable of striking most key targets in western Russia.
However, the Russians do not know much about this drone, and they have the wrong way of piecing the wreckage together. In fact, the engine is not in the head, but in the tail, something like this:
The drone did not explode when it crashed, so the warhead did not explode, and we were able to get a glimpse of what it really was:
This is obviously a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, with many deep grooves arranged vertically and horizontally on the outside of the projectile, which will shatter into small fragments when it explodes. Its weight is estimated to be 50 kg.
Obviously, such warheads are unlikely to have great destructive power, so the Ukrainian army cleverly aimed them at the Russian oil refining facilities.
There is also the wreckage of another drone on the Internet, which is also interesting:
If you take a closer look, you will see that this drone is very rudimentary, and the keel of the fuselage seems to be a relatively thick organic plastic water pipe, which can be seen in any residential building.
If you look closely, it's even more interesting, as the fuel tank is made of drinking water bottles connected together, and the avionics are housed in a container made of plywood. The wings are patchwork of thin planks and are covered with plastic skin on the outside.
The biggest advantage of this drone is that it is very cheap. You can even buy most of the materials to make it in a regular building materials store, without the need for high-precision machine tools and highly skilled workers.
Probably the most expensive part of it is the engine, and then the avionics. As you can imagine, those avionics are also cheap types.
Humorously, there is also a sticker of The Simpsons in the tail :)
In the current war, UAVs are disposable consumables, and whichever side can be manufactured in batches and in large quantities has an advantage. Fortunately, the Ukrainian side is clearly far ahead in the creation of drones.
Today there is an incident that makes Kazakhstan Fan very broken: a Chinese oil tanker was hit by a Houthi missile and caught fire!
According to the U.S. Central Command on the 23rd, in the early morning of March 23 local time, the Iranian-backed Houthis first launched four anti-ship ballistic missiles near the "Whampoa" oil tanker owned and operated by China. At 4:25 p.m., the Houthis fired a fifth missile and hit the Whampoa. The vessel then issued a distress signal, but did not call for rescue. Allegedly, the tanker suffered minimal damage, and the fire on board was extinguished within 30 minutes. No casualties were reported, and the vessel has resumed navigation.
Previously, the Houthis had repeatedly announced to the world that they would not attack passing Chinese and Russian ships. But I think that because there are so many ships sailing in the relevant waters, and the Houthis don't have the ability to distinguish between them, they are just attacking indiscriminately, and one day they will hit Chinese and Russian ships.
In fact, this is not the first time that the Houthis have hit by mistake. Earlier they had already hit Russian tankers twice. It just didn't make much of a difference.
This time, Hussey still hit the tanker "Whampoa".
On the website of "Boat Sight", you can clearly see the trajectory of the ship:
It can be seen that the ship did sail in the waters south of Yemen. But shortly after passing south of Mukla, the signal was cut off. It may be that the crew members turned off their communications equipment after the attack.
In the relevant report of Jianzhong Network, a huge amount of space was spent to argue that the ship had a complex transaction record, and said that it was a ship belonging to a Hong Kong shipping company. Their intentions are clear.
Actually, these statements are pale. With such space, why not publish some news about Russia's indiscriminate bombardment of Ukraine, causing huge human and property losses and huge humanitarian disasters?
At the end of today's content, there is still a lot of good news about the overall war situation between Russia and Ukraine:
1. On the 761st day of the war, according to the report on the results released by the General Staff of Ukraine this morning local time, in the past day, a total of 60 battles took place on the entire front line.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Syrsky, recently disclosed on social media that the military organizational structure of the Ukrainian army will be optimized to a certain extent. He mentioned that a reasonable redistribution of some managers could mean the reassignment of their positions. He also said that in the past 10 years, many changes have taken place in the structure and functions of the army, and he intends to continue to simplify and improve the quality and efficiency of management, and he also mentioned the need to replenish the troops with weapons and military equipment, as well as to fully restore the combat capability of the brigades.
Syrsky also said that it is necessary to establish a rotation procedure for the personnel of the troops. He mentioned that some units had been fighting since the first day of the war. Syrsky stressed that the rotation process has already begun and will not stop, but will only strengthen.
As of yesterday, the Russian army has accumulated 437,390 casualties, and 640 new losses yesterday!
The Ukrainian army also destroyed a total of 6,887 Russian tanks, 11 new ones, 13,183 armored vehicles, 25 new ones, and 10,877 artillery pieces, 22 new ones.
2. Air strikes: This morning local time, the Ukrainian air defense network intercepted 8 of the 9 Russian Shahid suicide drones. It seems that the intensity of the Russian army's air strikes is decreasing.
3. Attacks by Ukrainian drones on targets in Russia also continue today. The Russian air defense network, including in the Belgorod region, is also active today.
Earlier, an oil refinery in the Kuibyshevsky region suspended operations after a drone strike on March 23. One of the units was damaged.
The news comes from ASTRA's report, which claims that the AVT-4 unit was damaged as a result of the drone attack on the Samara refinery, and the production cycle of the plant has been stopped.
4. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced a few days ago that a so-called "Dnieper flotilla" has been established. It is possible that the assets of the fleet come in large quantities from the Russian Caspian Flotilla.
Shoigu declared that the main mission of the "Dnieper flotilla" is to provide guarantees for the landing operation of its troops and prevent similar actions by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Therefore, there is a high probability that this fleet will not be equipped with very powerful ships. Light and small ships from the Caspian flotilla are quite suitable.
According to open sources, the Caspian flotilla has 6 main combat ships, 5 patrol boats, and a large number of landing craft, all of which can be easily transferred to the Dnieper. The Caspian flotilla also has a small number of minesweepers of larger tonnage, which may not be very suitable.
However, these combat ships of the Caspian Flotilla are generally not of high tonnage, and their weapons and equipment are relatively backward. In particular, they are not equipped with advanced radar systems and close defense systems. The photo below shows the gunboat "Shmel" of the Russian Caspian Flotilla:
Such ships are simply not capable of dealing with the unmanned boats of the Ukrainian army at sea. If this "Dnieper fleet" is formed, the Russian army will soon have to consider the issue of denaturalizing the entire fleet.
That's all there is to know about today's war.
The biggest news recently is that both sides of Russia and Ukraine are working harder to launch air attacks, and the fighting on the ground is clearly not as intense as before. This is a manifestation of the protracted nature of the war.
Although Russia's attack on Ukraine's power network has damaged many of Ukraine's power plants and transmission networks, Russia does not have sufficient missile reserves and production capacity, so attempts to return Ukraine to a "primitive society" are doomed to failure.
And Ukraine's air strikes are becoming more and more effective. We've seen that their drones are not only effective, but they're also inexpensive, and from that perspective, I'm more bullish on the Ukrainian side, because they obviously have more ability to sustain the strike.
Moreover, the Ukrainian army also has in its hands some long-range weapons from Western allies. The British "Storm Shadow" and the French "Scarp" have been used many times to attack the docks and docks of the Black Sea Fleet, and together with the unmanned boats of the Ukrainian army, the Black Sea Fleet has been beaten so that it does not dare to go to sea at all.
I sincerely hope that the Ukrainian army will continue to adhere to the correct tactics, and I also hope that the allies will assist Ukraine with more "killing weapons" to paralyze the combat effectiveness of the Russian army as soon as possible!
End of full text
Information source: 2024-03-25 WeChat official account is on this day
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FhlrE9BEJlOCJ35KPq9VhQ
【Statement】This article is forwarded and shared, and the source has been indicated. It does not mean that this platform agrees with or opposes the views of the original author, and the responsibility and copyright belong to the original author. This article is reproduced for the purpose of conveying more information, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete.