Ukraine Found Russia’s Secret Helicopter Base Inside Of A Beach Resort, Then Took Aim With Missiles And Drones Story by David Axe, Forbes Staff • 7 December 2023
A Russian air force Mil Mi-35M helicopter. Russian air force capture
© Provided by Forbes
When Ukrainian forces broke through Russian lines in southern Ukraine in late 2022 and raced toward the Dnipro River, the Russians scrambled to relocate their precious attack helicopters.
The Russian air force’s main helicopter base, in Chaplynka 25 miles south of the Dnipro, soon would be well within range of Ukrainian drones and rocket-launchers. To protect the rotorcraft, the Russians scattered them to smaller, hidden bases farther from the front.
Now the Ukrainians are finding, and striking, those bases. But a shortage of deep-strike weapons could curtail the raids.
The damage a handful of well-aimed missiles can inflict on flimsy helicopters is startling. Shortly after receiving a batch of around 20 old M39 rockets from U.S. Army stocks back in the fall, the Ukrainian army fired several of the two-ton, 100-mile-range rockets at Russian helicopter bases in Berdyansk and Luhansk, destroying or badly damaging nearly two dozen helicopters.
Each M39 scatters a thousand grenade-size bomblets, any one of which can disable a delicate rotorcraft.
To mitigate this risk in the south, the Russian air force rehomed some of its Chaplynka-based helicopters in Strilkove, a resort town on the Arabat Spit near Crimea, a hundred miles from the Dnipro front line.
Analysis group Frontelligence Insight scrutinized satellite imagery and found evidence of perhaps 20 helicopters operating from a fenced-in pad inside the beach resort. “The evacuation and relocation of the Chaplynka air base ... exemplifies the Russian necessity to establish new concealed locations due to concerns about potential targeting,” Frontelligence Insight noted.
Russia says downed Ukrainian drones as fighting rages on eastern front But the Ukrainian military has access to the same imagery that independent analysts do—plus higher-fidelity military imagery from NATO as well as other intelligence indicators, such as radio intercepts. Of course the Ukrainians found the Strilkove base.
Early last month, Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-24M bombers reportedly fired Storm Shadow cruise missiles at a headquarters in Strilkove. A month later on Dec. 5, Ukraine’s intelligence agency launched explosive drones at the base, reportedly striking a P-18 radar, an air-defense missile battery and the helicopter pad.
Russian air-defenses clearly didn’t prevent the raids, which should come as no surprise. Back in the fall, the Ukrainians conducted an intensive operation targeting radars and air-defense batteries in and around Crimea, first confusing the Russians with American-made decoys then hitting them with drones and air- and ground-launched cruise missiles.
These attacks claimed two of the Russians’ five long-range S-400 batteries in Ukraine, opening gaps in Russian defenses that the Ukrainians now can exploit in order to strike the most valuable targets across Crimea and adjacent oblasts. Valuable targets such as the Strilkove helicopter base.
“Given the growing range of Ukrainian weaponry, this pattern will continue,” Frontelligence Insight stated. But range isn’t the problem. The problem is supply.
Perhaps half of Ukraine’s deep-strike weapons come from the country’s allies. The United Kingdom has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles. France has donated similar SCALP-EG missiles. The United States has pledged M39s and Ground-Launched Small-Diameter Bombs.
It’s apparent from the slow pace of deep strikes that all of these munitions are in short supply. The Ukrainians apparently haven’t fired an M39 in six weeks, possibly indicating it already has expended the entire initial batch of missiles—and no second batch was forthcoming.
Ukraine’s domestic deep-strike weapons—drones plus ground-launched S-200 and Tochka ballistic missiles and Neptune cruise missiles—are effective, but they’re no more plentiful than the donated weapons are. It was big news when the Ukrainian army recently got a fresh batch of Tochkas following a six-month gap in that particular capability.
The imminent but belated arrival of the first Ground-Launched Small- Diameter Bombs should boost Ukraine’s deep-strike arsenal, but perhaps only briefly.
And don’t expect a big plus-up from the Americans anytime soon, or perhaps ever. Just this week, pro-Russian Republicans in the U.S. Congress voted down the White House’s request to spend $60 billion on weapons for Ukraine next year.