The russian army has lost two Ka-52 attack helicopters and two Mi-8 transport helicopters, destroyed at an advanced aerodrome in the Belgorod region. The targets were eliminated through coordinated actions of the Special Operations Forces and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.
Delivering the strike was the M142 High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) while the location was monitored by a reconnaissance UAV, which filmed the following video.
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As noted in the official post by SOF, they used M30A2 precision-guided rockets of the GMLRS family, with a firing range of about 80 km. The M30A2's warhead contains tungsten pellets for additional fragmentation impact. By exploding midair directly above the target, they demonstrate extremely high firepower on par with cluster munitions.
This episode became one of the few cases in which GMLRS was used for such attacks. Until now, Ukrainian HIMARS crews usually relied on longer-range ATACMS missiles to wipe out russian rotorcraft aviation at full-time heliports or catch them during the landing in near-frontline landing/pickup zones.
The only reason why such GMLRS strikes on russian helicopter advanced airfields don't usually occur is that the russian forces know perfectly well the attack distance of Ukraine's artillery weapons, and hide their assets beyond their reach. However, this time russians disregarded safety measures and deployed an aerodrome in a dangerous zone.
Perhaps someone in the russian military command actually believed their own propaganda stories that the U.S. had remotely denied Ukraine of the ability to use HIMARS.
No less important here was still the meticulous timing by the Ukrainian special and intelligence forces. The window of opportunity for a strike like this is very short, since helicopters only take a brief stop at these facilities, mostly for just enough time to refuel and rearm. Hence the reaction time is limited.
It reminds that any smart weapon is helpless unless it is complemented with accurate target data and coordinates in a timely manner, and that is why behind every successful mission lies a very complex operation of detecting the advanced airfield and choosing the right time for the strike.
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