The Pentagon says Russia is floundering due to ongoing Ukrainian advances, the impact of economic sanctions and an apparent Ukrainian military ability to target and destroy Russian command and control nodes.
“The Ukrainians have become very effective in finding and killing Russian command and control nodes and destroying swaths of Russian materiel,” a senior official told reporters, according to a Pentagon transcript.
Ukraine Russia War
This is by no means surprising, given that Urkainians now have the long sought after longer-range ground-fired rockets and missiles such as High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems which have arrived in recent months. Weeks ago after these weapons arrived,, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said they were having an immediate impact.
The reasons for this are clear. If there still is, as of yet, no air superiority, and traditional M777 artillery has a standard range of 30km, Ukrainian forces have simply had no way to counter the indiscriminate long-range Russian rocket and missile fire. Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians, which have continued to kill children and others, can finally be countered to some extent.
Ukrainians have for months had aerial surveillance from both their own drones and NATO, yet without air superiority they have had no way to target or attack missile launchers, fire bases, troop concentrations and command and control nodes on the Russian side of the border. Now, as has been requested by Ukraine since the earliest days of the conflict, Ukrainian forces have some ability to do this, a critical tactical development which clearly seems to be having an impact.
