Military Overview: Devastating Russian Strikes Across Ukraine On April 11, 2024

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The morning of April 11 was marked by new devastating waves of Russian precision strikes. The Russian military launched combined attack on Ukrainian strategic energy, military and industrial infrastructure. Explosions have been thundering all night long in almost all Ukrainian regions, in the eastern, western, southern and central parts of the country.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attacks were carried out using unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. According to the Ukrainian military, 37 out of 40 drones were allegedly shot down. Cruise missiles and Dagger (Kinzhal) hypersonic missiles struck targets in the Kiev region and in the west of the country.

Dozens of Geran-2 barrage munitions, Tu-95MS missile carriers and MiG-31 with hypersonic Daggers struck many targets, including both military and infrastructure, energy facilities all across the country.

At night, explosions thundered in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Rivne, Odesa, Khmelnitsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Cherkasy, Dnepropetrovsk, Chernovtsy, Zhitomir regions.

The attack inflicted heavy damage to the energy system of the country. The Energy Ministry of Ukraine confirmed attacks on energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Zaporizhia regions, providing no details on the exact targets; but the damage to the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was so heavy that it was too hard to hide. Numerous targets were soon identified.

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed the attack:

In response to the attempts of the Kiev regime to damage the facilities of the energy, oil and gas industry of Russia, tonight the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike with high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles at the facilities of the fuel and energy complex of Ukraine. The objectives of the strike have been achieved. All targets were affected.

As a result, the work of Ukrainian military enterprises was disrupted, the transfer of reserves to combat areas was thwarted, and the supply of fuel to military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was hampered.

Kyiv region

One of the main targets of the Russian attack was the Tripolye Thermal Power Plant located near the town of Obukhiv in the Kyiv region. It came under several precision strikes. According to Ukrainian source, the facility was struck both by drones and missiles. Recall that the Ukrainian military claimed that in total only three Russian UAVs were not intercepted by almighty Ukrainian air defense forces. Taking into account Ukrainian claims about the strikes of Kinzhal missiles in the Kyiv region, the TPP could become the target.

The strikes hit the power units of the station. All four of them caught fire.

Several hours after the attack, DTEK company, which is the largest private investor in the energy industry in Ukraine, declared that the Tripolye TPP was completely destroyed. All power units if the station were put out of service. A large fire is still going on at the station, which emergency services cannot extinguish after the morning strikes.

The Tripolye TPP includes energy generating enterprises with a total capacity of 3,600 MW. The installed capacity of the station is about 57%, which is about 1,800 MW. Thus, the station was the largest energy generating facility in the Kyiv region. At the same time, it is the largest supplier of electricity to the neighboring Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions.

The strikes of several Russian missiles could definitely put the entire station out of service. However, Ukrainian authorities rarely acknowledge the real damage caused by the Russian strikes and the official claims from Kyiv can be rarely believed. It should not be excluded that Kyiv is exaggerating the damage to the strategic energy facilities in an attempt to prevent the Russian military from further strikes on them. In its turn, the Russian military has all the necessary means to determine the extent of damage to the targets of its strikes. If any of the damage power units in the Tripolye TPP are restored, more Russian missiles are likely to strike it again.

Last night, several explosions also thundered in the Ukrainian capital. According to unconfirmed reports, more Russian strikes targeted some industrial facilities and anti-aircraft missile launchers deployed on the outskirts of Kyiv. The scale of the inflicted damage is yet to be revealed.

Kharkiv region

At least 10 Russian strikes were reported in the eastern city of Kharkiv. Using various weapons, including heavy aerial bombs with universal planning and correction modules, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation hit targets in different targets in the city and throughout the region.

As a result of the attack, electricity was cut off and the subway was stopped in Kharkiv. The interruption of the electricity supplies in the city confirmed heavy damage to the local energy system.

Soon after the attack, it was revealed that another precision strike hit the local large Combined Heat and Power station #3 (CHP-3). This is far from the first attacks on the energy facility in recent times. Even though the station is not completely destroyed, the energy system in this industrial region, as well as in the entire country, is suffering from cumulative effect of a sharp shortage of electricity generation.

The new wave of strikes hit large industrial facilities in the city. They included:

• The building No. 400 and the workshop No.510 of the Malyshev Factory, formerly known as the Kharkov Locomotive Factory. This is a large state-owned manufacturer of heavy equipment, primarily for the military needs.
• The foundry shop of the Turboatom plant. This state enterprise is responsible for power engineering in Ukraine. Buildings of the Kharkiv Electromechanical Plant located nearby also came under the attack.
• Kharkiv plant of reinforced concrete products which belongs to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

A missile strike hit one of the large military facilities in the area of Chuguev in the Kharkiv region. The central warehouse of engineering ammunition in the military base #A-2467 was reportedly destroyed there. The military equipment accumulated in the Chuguev area is destined for supplies of the Ukrainian grouping deployed on the frontlines around the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk urban agglomeration. This is the last main stronghold, which is under the control of the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Ukrainian sources published the alleged routs of Russian strikes

Lviv region

According to the Ukrainian monitoring sources, eight Russian MiG-31 fighters launched Dagger (Kinzhal) hypersonic missiles at a strategic target in the western Ukrainian Lviv region. The attack took place near the Ukrainian border with Poland. Polish fighters took off on alert.

The target of the attack was the strategically important gas collection point located near the town of Stryi. The facility was struck by Kinzhal hypersonic and 4 Kh-101 cruise missiles, which approached the facility from three directions.

Stryi is a small town, but there are two major energy facilities located there. The Bilce-Wolicke-Uger gas storage facility is the underground gas storage facility in Ukraine and the second largest in Europe. Since last year, European officials have been considering the option of storing excess gas in storage facilities in Ukraine, including in the Bilche-Volitsko-Ugersk UGS, which holds up to 17 billion cubic meters of fuel. They believed that Ukrainian storage facilities could help balance supply and demand in the EU gas markets. The facility was previously damaged as a result of the Russian strikes in late March. LINK

The town of Stryi also hosts the West Ukrainian substation, which is the largest substation in Europe. Now it connects the energy grid of Ukraine with Europe, all energy export and import go through it. The Russian attack definitely affected the operation of the station. The massive Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure in Western Ukraine are a clear sign to Kiev’s Western ‘partners’.

Another target hit in the Lviv region was the town of Chervonograd, where both military and energy facilities were targeted. The military facilities of the 72^nd Separate Battalion  responsible for material support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine came under attack. As a result of the strikes, the local Chervonograd-2 energy substation was reportedly put out of service.

Russian sources published the map showing the targets of the attack

Rivne region

The Russian strikes on Western Ukraine were not limited to the Lviv region. Russian Geran UAVs reportedly struck Ukrainian air defense facilities in the Khmelnitsky and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. According to local reports, several drones reached one of the local airfields used by the Air Forces of Ukraine and led to the partial destruction of its infrastructure.

Among the other military facilities, it was confirmed that the central artillery weapons base #1448 in the town of Susk in the Rivne region was destroyed.

Odesa region

New wave of Russian strikes hit targets in the southern region of Odesa, which is targeted by Russian drones and missiles on a regular basis. The local reports claimed a series of explosions on the local facilities of the railway infrastructure. The strikes were launched after the strategically important railway bridge near the port of Ilyichevsk (Chernomorsk) was heavily damaged the day before. The damage to the railway roads and port infrastructure in the Odessa region is disrupting military supplies from NATO by the sea. LINK

The strikes also damaged the local energy substation in the village of Usatovo located on the outskirts of the city Odesa. The local sources confirmed fire at a local energy facility, claiming that it broke out after the wreckage of destroyed Russian UAVs fell there.

Residents of Odesa filmed a woman fighting Russian missiles. This is the secret weapon of the Ukrainain air defense forces:

Zaporizhia region

Both Russian sources and Ukrainian authorities confirmed damage to some strategic energy facility in the city of Zaporizhia. Any details are yet to reveal the target.

More strikes reportedly hit the areas of deployment of the Ukrainian military in the Zaporizhia region. As a result of the attack, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered losses in precious military reserves, which were accumulated there for the further deployment on the frontlines near the village of Rabotino.

Another massive wave of Russian strikes in the rear regions of Ukraine has demonstrated the absolute inability of the Ukrainian air defense forces to protect even strategically important infrastructure far from the battlefields. Numerous Ukrainian military and energy facilities were struck by several missiles at once. This intensity of strikes on a single target suggests that the Russian military has been tasked with completely destroying or critically damaging all large non-nuclear energy facilities on the territory of Ukraine. Since a large part of Ukrainian power is generated by the three nuclear power stations that remained under the Ukrainian control, the only way to cut the Ukrainian military from the energy is to put the large power stations throughout the country out of service and force the Ukrainian leadership to decrease or end the operations of these very NPPs. This is the way the Russian military attempts to avoid a nuclear disaster, while the Armed Forces of Ukraine resumed attacks on the Zaporozhie NPP, which is secured by the Russian military. LINK, LINK

Moreover, the massive attacks on the Ukrainian energy system resumed after the cold winter ended in order to decrease damage to the civilian population of the war-torn country.

The ongoing repeated attacks are finally aimed to inflict the decisive damage to large power plants that will not allow the facilities to be restored in the near future. Ukrainian energy companies have previously reported that some power plants are so badly damaged that they will not be able to start their work within the next year. The large Dnieper Hydroelectric Station in the Zaporizhia region, Zmievskaya TPP and CHP-5 in the Kharkiv region, Kurakhovskaya Hydroelectric Station, Slavyanskaya TPP in the DPR and a number of other targets were destroyed. As a result, the entire military-industrial complex of the country is at risk.

No civilian casualties were reported as a result of the massive night attack.

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