Ukrainian forces have inflicted an effective blow to a rather unusual target nowadays: a convoy of russian military vehicles. Even more notably, the events took place outside Ukrainian borders, in the Kursk Region of the russian federation.
Combat video, soon published by Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko shows how it happened. Initially, a reconnaissance UAV spots the group of vehicles on the move, then explosive FPV drones raid the location. As it goes, first, hit the head and the tail of the column, then finish off the rest: the tactic was refined by Ukrainians in the battles of early 2022, which at that time caused russian forces to stop traveling in columns altogether.
Read more: "Looks Almost Fine": S-400 Takes a Hit from Ukrainian HIMARS Rocket
Although this tactic works best on narrow roads from where the transport in the middle has no room to flee, and usually proves less effective amidst an open field, it still paid off. About a dozen trucks were destroyed in the process.
The attack drone units who executed this mission are the "Malibu" of the 53rd Mechanized Brigade and the "Krila Do Pekla" of the 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade. Besides the destroyed column, the rest of the clips in the video show individual instances of russian equipment taken down by FPV drones, crowdfunded by Sternenko's community.
The exact date of when the events unfolded, is not specified, so are the coordinates of the location but we can fix this thanks to OSINT methods. Needless to say, the russians already know all this information perfectly well. The column was destroyed only a slight distance (~2.5 km) from the Ukrainian border in the area of the settlements of Sverdlikovo and Lebedevka in russia.
The reasons why, despite the experiences of 2022, the russian forces still had the confidence to line up like that, in immediate proximity to Ukrainian positions, are quite simple. The main one is the confidence that they will not be attacked. Mainly because the partners from the West have forbidden Ukraine to use their weapons for strikes on russian territory, no matter how close or remote. Knowing that most of the guns in the Ukrainian own arsenal are quite short-range, there are very few chances for the russians to come under fire on their territory.
As we can see, even now that this ban has been lifted, the russian invasion army continues to behave this way. Another possibility is that the video was taken before Sweden, then France and many other countries including the United States retracted these limitations or eased the conditions of using Western weapons.
Be that as it may, a situation where russian forces group up is very favorable for the Ukrainian side. Not only their combat units become more conspicuous, they are also perfect targets for GMLRS rockets deployed by M142 HIMARS artillery systems, now available for use against the territories not too deep into russia. The results a GMLRS can produce are more deadly and operationally faster.
Defense Express reminds that earlier there were multiple occasions where the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to detect and track the valuable assets of russian military equipment but couldn't reach them because of the mentioned allies' restrictions. One recent case is the rare 2S43 Malva self-propelled artillery gun seen stationed in the Belgorod Region in russia. Others include the S-400 case, and the helicopter bases' case reported at various points in the past.
Read more: russia Conducts Mysterious Operation at Tsiklon Corvette Sinking Site
