Vladimir Putin’s forces have fallen back on using one particular tactic to “break the will” of the Ukrainian people, according to UK intelligence.
Fears Russia could use its nuclear arsenal in the Ukraine war have risen in recent weeks after the UK and the US gave Kyiv permission to use their long-range missiles – a move Moscow said was an escalation,
Putin subsequently lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons, launched a ballistic missile at Ukraine and threatened to attack the UK and America.
But, on the battlefield, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) claimed Russia’s air force has “failed to gain air superiority over Ukraine” even though it has “technological and numerical advantage”.
In its latest update on social media, the UK intelligence officers said Putin’s forces had “resorted to using their tactical level aviation – such as SU-34 aircraft – as airborne artillery” to fight Ukraine.
However, the MoD also warned that the use of one-way attack Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the war enabled Moscow to turn its attention to its long-range aviation fleet – including its ballistic and cruise missiles – and replenish those stocks.
Ballistic missiles can carry both nuclear and non-nuclear loads.
As the MoD pointed out: “Whilst Russia retains the ability to use these assets, the ultimate effect is that the air defence picture for Ukraine is increasingly busy, complex and challenging.”
Russia is expected to use these multiple attack systems to “break the will of the Ukrainian people” with future strikes on their critical national infrastructure in the coming months.
The MoD did note that Kyiv has managed to execute a few strikes of its own, too.
It said: “Ukraine has successfully used UAVs against military targets in Russia.
“In mid and late September, Ukraine struck four Russian strategic ammunition depots hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine.
The total tonnage of ammunition destroyed across the sites represents the largest loss of Russian and North Korean supplied ammunition during the war.
“The attacks again highlight Russia’s inability to protect strategic military sites from Ukrainian UAV attack.”
The MoD previously claimed the quality of the Russian army has depleted after 1,000 days of war after losing more than 700,000 soldiers in battle.