According to British intelligence, Russia has begun its more concerted campaign of airstrikes as it aims to destroy Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
The British MOD warns about the plans of the Russian Federation for Ukraine
British intelligence sources note that on the night of December 7, 2023, the Russian Air Force launched a powerful wave of strikes against Kyiv and central Ukraine for the first time in three months, using its fleet of heavy bombers.
What is essential to understand is that these aircraft, most likely Tu-95s, launched at least 16 air-launched cruise missiles from their typical operational area over the Caspian Sea.
According to the British Ministry of Defense, the missiles were most likely AS-23a KODIAK (NATO designation for the Kh-101 and Kh-102 missiles).
The intelligence officers also suggested that the aggressor country was almost certainly stockpiling these missiles for use in the winter campaign.
This was probably the start of a more concerted campaign by Russia aimed at degrading Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the report says.
As mentioned earlier, Ukrainian air defence successfully destroyed most of these missiles in the sky.
The Ministry of Defense of Britain draws attention to the fact that, despite the death of one civilian, the damage as a result of the attack was insignificant.
Russia tries to exhaust Ukrainian air defense
It is also impossible to ignore the fact that during the shelling of Kyiv on December 8, the aggressor country used decoy missiles to confuse and exhaust Ukraine's air defenses.
However, Moscow's plan had been failed again.
The use of decoy missiles was the reason that Russian missiles could not successfully hit any target in Kyiv and were shot down by air defense. A Russian blogger complained that it was "virtually impossible" for Russian forces to launch enough X-55 decoy missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian air defense because of the limited number of Tu-95 and Tu-160 [strategic] bombers, the ISW team says.
