Ukraine: Russia uses decoy missiles and intel balloons
Russia has switched its aerial strike tactics to fool Ukraine’s air defenses, using decoy missiles without explosive warheads and deploying balloons, a senior Ukrainian official said Thursday.
“The Russians are definitely changing tactics” as the war approaches its one-year anniversary, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The goal of the decoy missiles, Podolyak said, is to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense systems by offering too many targets.
“They want to overload our anti-aircraft system to get an extra chance to hit infrastructure facilities,” Podolyak said, adding that Ukraine’s air defenses are adapting to the challenge.
In the interview, Podolyak also renewed Ukraine’s appeals for longrange missiles that would enable it to strike Russian troop concentrations far behind the front lines, and also stressed that “we just don’t have enough shells.”
He argued that speededup supplies of weaponry from Western partners would quicken an end to the war and said drawn-out war would favor Russia, not least because its population is more than three times that of Ukraine.
“A protracted war is the slow death of Ukraine,” he said. “Russia has enough time. Why? They will live in poverty. They always live like this. They don’t need comfort. They can live in a camp.”
But nearly a year into the Russian invasion, the human, economic and diplomatic costs are proving huge for Moscow. Its military difficulties include a growing shortage of missiles, Ukrainian and Western officials say.
Podolyak said Russia is facing “missile exhaustion” and that shortages are forcing its change in tactics. He said Russia is mixing older Soviet-era missiles with
“new missiles that have some value.”
Moscow has not acknowledged problems with weapon supplies. But Britain’s Defense Ministry said in late November that Russia appeared to be stripping nuclear warheads off old cruise missiles and then firing the missiles as blanks at Ukraine. “Russia almost certainly hopes such missiles will function as decoys and divert Ukrainian air defenses,” it said.
Ukraine’s Western allies have progressively boosted the country’s air defenses in response to Russia’s expanded bombardments of the power grid and other targets. The changed Russian tactics — seen by some as evidence that Moscow is adapting its brute-force war strategy into something more nuanced — appeared to pay dividends Thursday when Russian forces fired 36 missiles in a two-hour overnight burst. Ukrainian air defense batteries shot down 16 of them — a lower rate of success than against some previous Russian waves.
Hamid Yakisikli has waited outside the pile of concrete that used to be his house since an earthquake devastated his home in the ancient city of Antakya. He and his two brothers have endured freezing conditions, in big jackets and wool hats, waiting for rescuers to retrieve the body of their mother, Fatma, from under the rubble.
Ever since the Feb. 6 earthquake decimated swaths of Turkey and Syria, survivors have gathered outside destroyed houses and apartments, refusing to leave.
Hundreds of buildings were reduced to rubble; ancient buildings lie in ruins; and the streets of Antakya’s historic center were blocked by mounds of debris and furniture, dividing the city into small blocks of apocalyptic destruction. It was the most deadly quake in Turkey’s modern history.
Over 2 million people have left the disaster zone in Turkey, according to the government. But here in the worst-hit city, hundreds are still waiting. At every corner, a few people look at a pile of rubble, praying for a wife, a sister, a son or a friend.
Yakisikli, a retired cook, was closest to his mother. She lived right below him.
He was home when the quake struck. “We were on the third floor, and we just found ourselves on the ground,” he said. His mother’s second-floor apartment was deep underground.
Yakisikli and his brothers initially tried to climb the rubble in search of their mother. One caught a glimpse of her head through the debris — she was lifeless, lying on her back.
Unable to free her body, they began a long wait.
“I can’t have peace of mind without burying her,” said Yakisikli, as he watched an excavator claw at the remains of the building behind his home.
The Yakisiklis only slept when the excavators turned off their engines, in a tent pitched in an abandoned school near their former home. There was no water, electricity or toilet in the tent.
“We will not feel good about leaving. We must get her out and bury her,” he said.
The Yakisikli brothers find solace in the company of the living — and the occasional laugh, as they spend the days swapping stories about their travels.
Some of the people waiting hope for a miracle.
On Wednesday, Abdulrizak Dagli and his wife read the Quran and raised their hands to the skies, as they waited for rescuers to retrieve their son and his wife, and a missing grandchild. Their 1-year-old granddaughter was pulled out of the debris alive five days after the earthquake.
Other survivors have refused to move to guard savings, valuable belongings and homes. Some search for documents they hope could help them rebuild the life they knew; others simply look for memories.
“We can’t leave our house,” said Gulsen Donmez, a 46-year-old survivor, leaning back on a plastic chair in a park opposite her damaged house. She left for a few days, but soon rushed back. “There are looters who are taking things from homes. We decided to stay here close to the house so we can go check on it all the time.”
Donmez, her husband, three children and their large dog have slept in a park, first in one of its small food stands, then in an empty kiosk they filled with blankets.
She held her hands to a wood-burning heater outside the kiosk. With no public toilets, she relieves herself in the open air.
She said she would wait for as long as it takes to get into her home and retrieve what she can. In the meantime, she has applied for a government-issued tent. Being placed in one would make it easier to access organized aid and begin seeking compensation.