RUSSIA EXECUTES DEVISTATING COUNTER-OFFENSIVE ON UKRAINE

Written by Michael Thervil

RUSSIA EXECUTES DEVISTATING COUNTER-OFFENSIVE ON UKRAINE | PHOTO BYPILPEY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE-GETTY IMAGES

[Russia Ukraine counter-offensive] In retaliation for Ukraine's drone barrage that killed 21 students and severely injured dozens more that were staying in a Russian college dorm located Starobilsk, a city in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine on May 21. The Russian military launched a fierce large-scale counter-offensive which included a total of 656 drone combined and 73 missiles on the Ukraine cities of Kiev, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Poltava that left 17 people killed and over 100 severely wounded. Among the missiles that were deployed by Russia was their hyper-supersonic Oreshnik missile defense system as well as eight of their advanced Zircon hypersonic missiles. Large fires, at least five medical facilities, at least a combined 50 residential and commercial buildings were also destroyed because of the Russian counter-offensive. This latest counter-offensive from Russia was executed at 7am.

With several dozen people trapped under rubble, in both Kiev and Dnipro, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated to the Press that Russia's counter-offensive was a “massive criminal attack”. Major power outages were reported. Many people within Russia have grown tired of the war with Ukraine and there has been an increase in the number of Russians that wish for President Vladimir Putin to finish off the war with the Ukrainians using whatever means possible. Russian counter offensive left Volodymyr Zelensky essentially begging for help from the Americans to send missiles for the patriot counter missile defense systems, of which are critically low on their stockpiles. It was reported that Ukraine intercepted and destroyed 40 missiles from the Russian counter-offensive.

According to the Russian ministry of defense, the latest Russian counter-offensive was devised to specifically target Ukraine's “defense, military, fuel and transport facilities in several key regions” due to “terrorist acts committed by the Kyiv regime”. In response Ukraine launched drones towards Russia, however 148 of those drones piloted by Ukraine were intercepted and shot down with the only exception of one getting through sparking a fire at a Krasnodar oil refinery which was quickly controlled.

Russian Zircon hypersonic missiles travel at an estimated nine times the speed of sound while the Oreshnik travels roughly 10 to 11 times the speed of sound. Both missile systems are exceptionally hard to intercept because there is no known counter defense missile system in existence that can successfully track them, thus guaranteeing them to strike their intended targets once launched.