'They Completely Smashed It!' Ukraine's Big Day of Airstrikes Is a Hit in Russia

The month of the Kursk Surprise turns out to have all kinds of surprises, including Kyiv's longest-range drone strike against Russia — so far, anyway. A bit less far away in Volgograd (née Stalingrad), a huge oil depot has been blowing up all day. I have video of that and more for you below.

In this week's biggest underreported story of the war, Ukraine commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that UA forces "managed to capture another Krasnooktyabrskoe settlement and in this way, they completely cut off the Russian army's land communication with the southern bank of the Seym River in the Glushkovsky district of the Kursk region."

Any Russian forces still there — and there are estimated to be hundreds of them — are effectively cut off. Ukraine is estimated to have captured around 2,000 Russian POWs during the Kursk Surprise. If Syrskyi's report is correct, they could net quite a few more.

Now back to those drone strikes.

Russia's Marinovka air base east of Ukraine near Volgograd (née Stalingrad) was hit hard by drones.

🔥 "They completely smashed it, fuck! Oktyabrsky airfield is fucked! And they're still ironing it out. Everything is exploding, fuck!" Marinovka military airfield, Volgograd region. Re-inclusion of a special correspondent from the site of the Ukrainian drones' arrival. Warehouses… https://t.co/MdKsSJ9yT2 pic.twitter.com/cbJR1ibcAZ
— ✙ Albina Fella ✙ 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇫🇷🇩🇪🇵🇱🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺 (@albafella1) August 22, 2024

Top-of-the-line Su-34 fighter/bombers and older Su-24 light bombers are — were? — stationed at Marinovka. It's hard to imagine anything surviving those fires, but you never know.

Multiple strikes on an oil depot in nearby Rostov started fires burning with such incredible heat that they can't be put out.

🔥 Oil depot in Rostov region, day five. Now another tank has exploded ( 00:07 ). https://t.co/QR0Xz8bYHZ pic.twitter.com/jCAau3IWYE
— ✙ Albina Fella ✙ 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇫🇷🇩🇪🇵🇱🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺 (@albafella1) August 22, 2024

An attempted airstrike on Moscow went less well. The Kremlin claims to have shot down all 11 drones and I'd believe them because there have been no reports of damage or casualties.

Even with the failure to hit Moscow, it all adds up to what might be Ukraine's largest and most destructive day of strikes on Russia yet.

Biden, for all of his tough talk, is AWOL. Foreign Policy reported Wednesday that "frustration is mounting on Capitol Hill" because "the Biden administration has failed to meet a deadline to provide Congress with a detailed written report of its strategy for the war in Ukraine."

"The strategy report was due to be submitted to Congress in early June as a requirement of the multibillion-dollar package of military aid for Ukraine and other U.S. allies," but Biden has yet to submit it 10 weeks later.

“This abdication of leadership, combined with numerous missed opportunities to capitalize on Russia’s battlefield mistakes, has needlessly cost lives and prolonged the war,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker said in an emailed statement. “Ukraine is demonstrating every day that it can defeat Putin’s illegal invasion. It is time for the President to take the handcuffs off our aid.”

Finally, in one of those things that makes you go, "Hmmm," ISW reported Wednesday that "the Kremlin is actively trying to condition Russian society to accept the limited Ukrainian presence in Kursk Oblast as a 'new normal' and downplay the significance of the incursion."

For a military that was just until last month thought to be being bled nearly dry, it's been one helluva show these last two weeks.

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