Forbes: Hundreds Of Russian Military Gathered In Open Area And Became Easy Target For ATACMS

Four two-ton missiles flew over the cluster of occupiers.

The village of Kuban in the Luhansk region is located about 100 km from the front line — that is, outside the range of most Ukrainian anti-personnel weapons, as previously thought. This is reported by Forbes.

This is a possible explanation for why last Wednesday potentially hundreds of Russian military personnel gathered in an open area.

The US-made ATACMS high-precision ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km disperses up to a thousand small submunitions. The Russians were walking around the field in broad daylight, and a Ukrainian drone spotted them from a height, after which four two-ton ATACMS flew in. According to journalists, one missile did not explode, and the other three scattered deadly small grenades.

One ATACMS missile exploded right above a crowd of about 116 Russians. According to the Institute for the Study of War, all Russians could have died in the rain of submunitions.

Wednesday's strike may have been one of the deadliest in a full-scale war, indicating poor planning by the Russian command. The command of the Russian Armed Forces could have known that such a strike was likely, because the supply of ATACMS was one of the main military priorities of Ukraine in recent months.

According to journalists, the Russians knew that Ukraine could strike ATACMS, and were warned in advance that the Ukrainian forces would attack the most vulnerable concentrations of Russian forces, including training grounds. The authors of the publication recalled that when last autumn Ukraine received its first small batch of ATACMS, they were immediately launched at several Russian airfields. About 20 helicopters were damaged or destroyed. Subsequently, in early April, Ukrainian crews shelled a valuable S-400 air defence system of the Russian Air Force. About four launchers were destroyed.