“Considerable damage done”
Missiles hit Ukrainian Air Force Headquarters
03/25/2022, 10:21 p.m
The headquarters of the Ukrainian Air Force is located in the city of Vinnytsia. Several Russian rockets hit there in the afternoon. The high command reports major damage to buildings, but cannot yet estimate the extent.
According to Ukrainian sources, the command center of the Ukrainian Air Force in Vinnytsia was attacked with Russian cruise missiles and badly damaged. According to the Ukrainian army, Russian forces fired six cruise missiles in the afternoon. Some were intercepted by the Ukrainian air defenses, others hit buildings and “did significant damage,” the command of the Ukrainian air force said in the messenger service Telegram.
The consequences of the rocket attack were still being determined, it said. The army published a photo of a destroyed part of the building on Telegram.
The Ukrainian air force and air defense have so far been able to prevent the Russian army from taking complete control of Ukrainian airspace. A Pentagon official said on Monday that the Ukrainian air force was showing “great skill”.
In addition, government sources in Washington reported high failure rates of Russian missiles. That could explain why Moscow has not achieved many military goals, said three government officials with knowledge of intelligence information from the Reuters news agency. One of the insiders said Russia’s air-launched cruise missiles had a failure rate of between 20 percent and 60 percent, depending on the day. Failure can range from false launches to rockets failing to explode on impact.
According to the Institute’s Center for Strategic and International Studies Missile Defense Project, Russia has deployed two types of air-launched cruise missiles in Ukraine, the Kh-555 and the Kh-101. According to military experts, a default rate of 20 percent is already considered very high.