The HIMARS strike in Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian intelligence directorate captureA clutch of Russian officers reportedly gathered for a hasty meeting along a road near Tokmak just 15 miles south of the front line in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine on Friday. What should have been a quick conference between commanders turned into a bloodbath when Ukrainian intelligence detected the gathering—and a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System opened fire.
According to the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate, five vehicles burned and three Russian captains died: one each from the intelligence, air-defense and infantry corps. It was the second HIMARS strike in three days targeting Russian officers near the front line of Russia’s 34-month wider war on Ukraine.
A Christmas Day bombardment of a headquarters in the city of Lgov, near the Ukrainian-held salient in western Russia’s Kursk Oblast, may have killed or wounded leaders of the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. “This fiery impression is part of the campaign to weaken the capabilities of the enemy army,” the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications boasted.
It makes sense for Ukraine’s U.S.-made HIMARS, which fire precision-guided rockets as far as 57 miles, to target the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. That unit has been at the bleeding edge of Russia’s costly counteroffensive aimed at eliminating the 250-square-mile Ukrainian salient in Kursk.
It’s less obvious why the Ukrainians would assign one of their precious HIMARS to blow up a trio of captains in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southern Ukraine, a relative backwater now that the fighting has shifted east and north.
It’s possible Ukrainian planners are trying to prevent the Russians from organizing an offensive in Zaporizhzhia that, while unlikely to capture much ground given the paucity of Russian forces in the south, could nonetheless compel the Ukrainian general staff to divert sparse resources away from the east and north.
Note the pattern of Ukrainian raids in the south. In addition to striking that meeting of captains, the Ukrainian intelligence directorate and special operations command may have sent saboteurs to blow up a critical railroad through Tokmak on Dec. 15, reportedly destroying a fuel train in the process and disrupting Russian logistics in the area.
By targeting critical command and logistical infrastructure, Ukrainian forces could defeat a possible southern offensive by Russian forces before it even begins. Given good intelligence, it’s much easier to prevent an attack with a few precision strikes than to meet it soldier-for-soldier, tank-for-tank on the battlefield.
