Combat operations in Ukraine shape weapon development, growing pattern of strikes in Crimea, Russian claims of unique weapons - Serhiy Zgurets 

Explosions in Crimea

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are forming a new good tradition — to organize a "strikes party" every week at military airfields and bases of the Russian Federation in Crimea. In the temporarily occupied Crimea, explosions were again heard, this time over the military airbase in the Guard Simferopol district. Several explosions were heard there, and then black smoke rose above the air base. This object is more than 240 km away, from which it is theoretically possible to strike from the territory of Ukraine. Again, the intrigue: who and what. The airbase in Gvardiyske is located 30 km from the Saka airbase, where 9 to 20 Russian aircraft were destroyed or damaged last week, and now the 37th mixed aviation regiment of the Russian Air Force is based in Gvardiyske, where Su-24 front-line bombers were located until recently  and Su-25 attack aircraft. Let's see what's left of them.

Even earlier today, it was reported about other explosions in Crimea at ammunition warehouses in the village of Maiske, as well as about a fire at a transformer substation near Dzhanko. The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the reason for the explosions at the base was the storage of ammunition in the military unit, that it was sabotage.  The Ukrainian military did not comment on another strike in Dzhankoy, but the American newspaper The New York Times reported that an elite Ukrainian unit operating behind enemy lines was behind the explosions at the base near Dzhankoy. The publication again refers to the words of an unnamed high-ranking Ukrainian official. The publication states that this attack showed the ingenuity of the Ukrianian Armed Forces.

At that time, the occupation administration of Crimea ordered a stop to the movement of trains, in particular passenger trains, due to damage to the tracks that occurred as a result of explosions at the munitions depot in Dzhankoy. Russian mass media report that the population is already being evacuated in a 5-km zone around the warehouse. All this suggests that the enemy in Crimea can no longer feel safe anywhere. So it's time for the Russians to show gestures of goodwill, if, of course, they don't trample themselves in traffic jams on the Crimean Bridge, which is still operational.

Needs of Ukrainian Armed Forces in artillery

The Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov reported that our army received 6 M109 self-propelled howitzers of 155 mm caliber from Latvia, and these self-propelled howitzers are already working to destroy the Russian occupiers. The M190 A5 self-propelled guns have a range of up to 22 km with standard ammunition and up to 30 km with active rockets, which is further than the Russian Msta-S and Msta-B guns. In general, it is interesting that Latvia itself, with the number of ground forces of 1,700 soldiers, has 47 such self-propelled guns, and against this background, the transfer of six self-propelled guns to the Armed Forces of Ukraine can be explained by the logic that Reznikov once said that the allies would transfer in the amount necessary to create a new unit in the  Ukrainian army.  It actually happened, the Armed Forces received six more M109s from Latvia.

But the previously received German Panzerhaubitze 2000 guns, some of them have already gone for repair. These German howitzers are considered the most modern self-propelled guns that exist in the world today. For example, these howitzers have an absolute record for a range of 70 km when using an active-reactive projectile, and working ranges of 36 and 47 km are solved by other ammunition. Germany and the Netherlands handed over 15 such howitzers to Ukraine in early June and late July. Later, details about their use began to appear in the German press. First, about the desire of Germany to deploy service centers for the maintenance of these howitzers in Poland, because specialists from Germany will not go to Ukraine due to hostilities. The other day, a member of the Bundestag reported that out of 15 howitzers in Ukraine, only 5 are currently working. The German edition of Business Insider began to understand and it turned out that the situation is not so critical, but in any case, the intensity of use of Panzerhaubitze 2000 is so high that today  it is already necessary to resolve the issue of service maintenance and the replacement of guns, because the howitzer shot is large. It will also be an impetus to review the requirements for modern weapons, because the hostilities in Ukraine are creating new conditions and developers must take them into account.  The history of these howitzers will be an incentive for German designers to make their equipment better.

Russia on weapons without any analogues

At this time, the Russian Federation is talking about weapons that have no analogues at all. At the Russian arms show Army 2022 Putin talked about the development of equipment, which seems to be ahead of the development of other countries by a decade. Now Putin is following the path of Hitler, who during the Second World War, when the Third Reich was already suffering critically and hopelessly under the blows of the allies, began to place special hopes on a miracle weapon that could save him from defeat.  Putin does the same.