A Russian MiG-31 supersonic interceptor jet could have been one of the casualties from Ukraine\u2019s daring missile attack on a major airbase in Russian-occupied Crimea over the weekend, according to analysis from Ukrainian military bloggers.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Ukraine appears to have used U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike the Saky airfield on Crimea\u2019s western coast near the city of Novofedorivka. Videos showed massive explosions rocking the base, which houses a variety of Russian fighter jets and bombers used in the invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
While Russian authorities acknowledged an \u201cact of sabotage\u201d caused explosions and damage at Saky, they have not provided details on losses from the strike. However, the Ukrainian military monitoring blog Defence Express suggests satellite imagery indicates one of Russia\u2019s prized MiG-31 Foxhound jets may have been destroyed.<\/p>\n
The blog points to commercial satellite photos from March 31 that appeared to show four MiG-31 interceptors parked at the southern end of the Saky airfield. Comparing those images to footage of the huge clouds of smoke from Saturday\u2019s attack, the plumes appear concentrated in the same area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we compare these images and the map of fires on the airfield area after the strike, we can assume that ATACMS could have hit the MiG-31s,\u201d Defence Express wrote.<\/p>\n
While the imagery analysis remains unconfirmed, the potential loss of a MiG-31 would represent a major blow to Russia\u2019s shrinking fleet of supersonic, long-range jets primarily used for intercepting airborne threats.<\/p>\n
The MiG-31 is a highly specialized aircraft not easily replaceable amid sanctions crippling Russia\u2019s aerospace industry. Only around 370 were built before the jet was retired from production in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials have released details about the extent of damage and potential loss of aircraft from the Crimea attack. But it already represents one of Ukraine\u2019s most strategically significant strikes of the war on the peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014.<\/p>\n
For Ukraine\u2019s beleaguered air force, the destruction of even one MiG-31 would be a hard-won victory made possible by the ATACMS missiles recently provided by the U.S. As the conflict grinds on, such strikes could help weaken Russia\u2019s dwindling military capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine appears to have used U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike the Saky airfield on Crimea\u2019s western coast near the city of Novofedorivka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":17307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[109,1010,10639,10641,78,366,10640,215],"class_list":["post-17305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-atacms","tag-crimea","tag-mig-31","tag-novofedorivka","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-saky","tag-ukraine"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}