"Every hit must hit": The Russian military has the upper hand in this weapon. Helicopters | Russia | Russian military
According to the Daily Telegraph website on June 17th, the UK Ministry of Defense stated that Russia is using attack helicopters equipped with long-range missiles to gain the upper hand in the critical southern front of Ukraine's counterattack.
According to reports, the UK Ministry of Defense stated in an intelligence update that since Kiev launched its offensive earlier this month, Moscow has dispatched more than 20 helicopters to Berjansk Airport. Berjansk Airport is located about 100 kilometers behind the front line.
The UK Ministry of Defense said, "In this tug of war between air combat and countermeasures, Russia is likely to have temporarily gained an advantage in southern Ukraine, especially through attack helicopters equipped with long-range missiles to the ground."
The report pointed out that earlier this week, the UK Ministry of Defense stated that the Russian Air Force has been "unusually active in southern Ukraine" recently. The southern region is the center of Ukraine's counterattack, and Ukraine hopes to cut off the land corridor between the Russian occupied Crimea and the eastern Donetsk region.
The UK Ministry of Defense said that the daily frequency of Russian attack helicopters is still much lower than in the early stages of the war, when Russia dispatched 300 sorties per day. But Russia has increased the use of air to ground weapons, which allow fighter jets to stay away from targets. Especially, there are reports indicating that Russian attack helicopters are operating near the southern front, which may pose a serious threat to Ukraine's counterattack operations.
According to reports, a Ukrainian commander near the Zaporizhzhia front line said, "Helicopters are constantly launching attacks, 3 or 4 times a day." He said that his brigade has no effective method of shooting down these helicopters from the ground.
On the 13th, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a blurry promotional video, which reportedly featured a Ka-52 helicopter destroying Ukrainian tanks. This video, accompanied by passionate music, reads: "Mobile, highly reliable, and mobile. The Ka-52 reconnaissance and attack helicopter is flawless. It wins every battle and hits every hit. It has no opponents in the air."
Over the past week, Russia has released multiple similar videos.
According to reports, although the ground targets in these videos are not clear, a channel on social media platform "Telegram" called Fighterbomber, which has connections with Russian security agencies, said in January this year that Russia should send Ka-52 "Alligator" attack helicopters to destroy the "Abrams" main battle tank that the West had just promised to provide to Ukraine.
The Fighterbomber channel said, "Military helicopters can easily destroy tanks, especially in the absence of air defense. The tanks promised by the West to Ukraine are a problem that we must solve. The most likely solution is to rely on the Ka-52."
According to reports, just a week ago, Rybar, one of the most authoritative bloggers in the Russian military on the "Telegraph" software, released some photos of the destruction of Ukrainian military "Panther" tanks and "Abrams" tanks, claiming that these tanks were ambushed by Russian attack helicopters.
Rybar said, "The target surveillance video confirms that at least some targets, including the US produced 'Bradley' tank, were destroyed by the Ka-52 armed helicopter."
The Ka-52 two seater armed helicopter is a modern version of the Soviet designed Ka-50 Black Shark armed helicopter. As a highly lethal armed helicopter, it is often compared to the American Apache attack helicopter.
