Welcome to the Party Pal! Ukraine is Forcing Russia Into Air-Defense Triage
Russia appears to be running low on interceptors, just like everyone else on the planet
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Oops! Russia has a math problem.
Russia leans on so much scattered infrastructure to keep this war running that it can’t put a real air-defense umbrella over all of it at the same time.
Still, Moscow can do plenty. It can stack defensive rings around the capital. It can bolt Pantsir launchers onto rooftops. It can keep the good interceptors close to the Kremlin and the parade route.
What it can’t do is cover every refinery, bridge, fuel depot, drone command post, rail junction, port, airbase, and ammo dump from the Baltic to the Pacific.
Not all of them.
Not all night.
Not when the older interceptors are being drained, the newer ones are being rationed, and every cheap Ukrainian drone asks Moscow an expensive question.
Ukraine has been on the receiving end of that math, and now it’s forcing Russia into the same decision nightmare: deciding what you’re willing to leave uncovered.
On the night of June 18 into June 19, Ukraine reported a coordinated set of targets:
Two railway bridges near Rozdolne and Vladyslavivka in occupied Crimea.
A Russian equipment concentration near Sievierodonetsk.
A fuel and lubricants depot in occupied Mariupol.
A cluster of Russian drone command posts near Pokrovsk, Voskresenka, Siversk, and a few other spots along the line.
And, the big boy, the Moscow Oil Refinery, hit days after an earlier strike on the same plant.
