Ukraine Tracked Russia's Fighter Jets for 11 Weeks — Then DESTROYED Them All

[00:00:00]Six Russian ground attack jets lifted off from Milovo air base at 5:47 a.m.

[00:00:05]Their mission, strike Ukrainian logistics nodes along the Oscll River corridor. Standard rotation, same flight path they had used 43 times before. The squadron climbed to operational altitude, turned northwest, and disappeared into the low overcast above the Russian step. They didn't know anyone was watching. They never knew anyone was watching. But a Ukrainian reconnaissance cell positioned 17 km from the perimeter fence had been logging every takeoff, every landing, every fuel Bowser movement for 11 consecutive weeks. Timestamps, airframe tail numbers, ground crew schedules, the shift rotations of the base security personnel. The cell had built a targeting picture precise enough to predict the squadron's return window to within 4 minutes, and they'd pass that picture up the chain to people who had the weapons to act on it. I'm your host at Ukraine Radar, where we analyze the battles that change wars. Today, we're breaking down one of the most precisely executed airfield strike operations of the entire conflict. A mission that turned a routine Russian air operation cycle into a catastrophe on the ground.

[00:01:04]No air-to-air combat, no interceptor chase across the horizon. The jets weren't destroyed in the sky. They were destroyed on the ground, [music] wing tip to wing tip, canopies open, pilots already debriefed and walking toward the Messaul. This is how Ukraine waited for Russia's fighter jets to land and then blew them up. Real tactics, real consequences. Ukraine radar. To understand why this strike worked, you first have to understand what Russian airbase routine actually looks like and why routine is the most dangerous word in modern warfare. [music] Millerovo, a military airfield in Rosto Oblast, approximately 110 km from the Ukrainian border. The base hosts a mixed complement of ground attack and multi-roll aircraft. Sue25 frogfoot close air support platforms and sue34 fullback strike aircraft. These are the workh horses of Russia's tactical air campaign. Not glamorous, not headline grabbing, but operationally critical for the kind of sustained pressure Russia needs to maintain across contested front sectors. Remove them and the arithmetic of Russian tactical aviation changes significantly. The Sue34 is a serious machine. twin engine, sideby-side crew seating, terrain following radar, and a combat radius of approximately 1,100 km with external fuel tanks. It carries the 29 air-to-surface missile family, large unguided bomb loads, and increasingly throughout the full-scale phase of this conflict. The FAB 500 and FAB 1,500 series glide bombs, Russia began deploying to compensate for precisiong guided munition shortages driven by Western component sanctions. A single SU34 delivering a FAB 1 1500 from standoff range can destroy an apartment block, a logistics node, or a command post without ever entering Ukrainian air defense engagement envelopes. These aircraft are directly responsible for civilian casualties across Ukrainian cities. They are the tactical backbone of Russia's bombardment campaign. Russia flies these jets hard. The operational tempo at bases like Milovo is relentless. Multiple sorties per day per airframe when maintenance permits rotating crews through abbreviated rest cycles that fall well short of western aviation standards. Pilots are flying.

[00:03:10]Maintenance crews are working around the clock. Ground operations personnel are keeping aircraft armed, fueled, [music] and ready at a pace that prioritizes sorty generation over procedural variance. The pressure to generate strike capacity has [music] paradoxically created exactly the kind of predictable scheduling that a patient intelligence operation can exploit.

[00:03:30]Which weapon system do you think delivered the decisive blow in this strike? A longrange cruise missiles, B a ballistic strike package, or C drone guided precision munitions. [music] Drop your answer in the comments. We'll break down the actual weapon mix later in this analysis. The Ukrainian reconnaissance cell had identified the pattern within the first 3 weeks of observation. The squadron's morning sorty package would launch before 6:00 a.m. conduct strikes in the car or Donetsk direction and return to base between 8:15 and 8:45 a.m. Depending on target complexity, weather over the strike area and fuel state at turnover. Upon landing, aircraft were taxied to assigned hard stands on the Western Apron. Ground crews would arrive within 6 minutes of the first aircraft reaching its designated position. Fuel Bowsers typically reach the lead aircraft within 12 minutes of wheels down for the formation commander's jet. The entire parking sequence, all six jets positioned, engines cooled, cockpits open, ground power connected, was complete within 22 minutes of the first landing. That 22-minute window was the vulnerability, and it opened at the same time, in the same place, in the same sequence, day after day. The reconnaissance cell had started as a two-person observation post operating with binoculars and a civilian drone modified for low-profile surveillance.

[00:04:48]By the time the strike was authorized, it had grown into a sixperson unit running continuous shift coverage, feeding data through encrypted burst transmission channels to a UR coordinated targeting cell operating from an undisclosed location. The upgrade wasn't part of the original mission plan. It happened because the initial observers kept finding more to observe and because what they were finding was too valuable to leave underresourced. [music] Week one, landing patterns and apron hardand assignments. Week three, fuel bowser routes and ground crew timing sequences.

[00:05:17]Week six, identification of which hard stands received priority aircraft, the most operationally capable airframes assigned to the front row of the Western Apron closest to the runway threshold.

[00:05:28]Priority aircraft got fueled first.

[00:05:30]Priority aircraft launched first.

[00:05:31]Priority aircraft were the ones that mattered most to the squadron's combat effectiveness. Week nine, correlation of weather patterns with maintenance scheduling. On overcast days with low ceilings, ground crews ran longer post-flight checks because pilots flew more instrument approaches and the aircraft accumulated more stress cycle hours per sorty. That extended the time aircraft sat with canopies open and fuel panels exposed. On clear days, turnaround was faster. The targeting model had to account for weather dependent timing variance. Week 11, the cell transmitted a complete targeting package that included GPS coordinates for all six primary hardstand positions annotated with the average position error of each aircraft from its designated parking mark. Because aircraft don't park with centimeter precision, and the targeting solution had to account for the real world variance between where the hard stand was marked and where a pilot actually stopped his aircraft, the difference mattered for weapon-to-target pairing calculations. What the cell didn't know, what nobody on the Ukrainian side could know for certain was whether the designated strike assets would be available and ready when the window opened. Strike coordination across multiple weapon systems, multiple launch platforms, and a time constrained target window is not a certainty. Weather, mechanical readiness, competing mission priorities. Any of these could delay or abort a strike that months of intelligence work had made possible. The reconnaissance cell reported the outbound launch at 5:51 a.m. Six airframes airborne formation heading northwest. The report reached the targeting cell within 2 minutes. The strike package was put on 15minute readiness. They would wait for the jets to come home. Stay with me. What unfolds in the next 18 minutes determines whether any of those six Russian attack jets ever fly again. Millerovo's air defense architecture was not trivial.

[00:07:16]The base operated under coverage from a Pancir S1 gun missile point defense system stationed at the northern perimeter. A tracked vehicle mounting a dual 30mm autoc cannon alongside eight ready round 57 E6 surfaceto-air missiles with an engagement range of approximately 20 km. Supplementing the pants here M A teams at four positions distributed around the airfield perimeter providing short-range visual range coverage against lowaltitude threats. And further out, a longer range S300 battery positioned approximately 30 km to the southeast. Not organic to the base's own defense, but part of the regional air defense network covering the broader Millerovo area. This was layered integrated defense, the kind that made direct attack approaches genuinely dangerous for manned aircraft and for subsonic cruise missiles flying predictable flight paths at altitudes that made them visible to search radars.

[00:08:04]Ukrainian planners had known about this air defense geometry for months. The pancer position had been photographed by satellite imagery on multiple collection passes and cross-referenced against radar emission signatures collected by Ukrainian electronic intelligence assets. [music] The S300 battery search radar pattern had been analyzed and characterized. The man P A team positions were estimated based on standard Russian airbased defense doctrine applied to the known perimeter layout and adjusted for terrain that would affect coverage sectors. The solution wasn't to defeat the entire air defense system. It was to sequence the strike so that the critical point defense element was neutralized before the main strike package arrived [music] and to approach from a geometry that placed the pancer systems radar in a degraded engagement position during the critical window. Radar systems have optimal engagement geometries. They have look angles where performance is strongest and angles where clutter terrain masking and antenna orientation combine to degrade detection range.

[00:09:00]approaching from the southwest from terrain that included rolling step and a shallow river valley. Put any inbound missile in a flight profile where the Pancer's acquisition radar was fighting ground clutter at the same time it needed maximum sensitivity to detect a lowaltitude target. The Pancer crew was also distracted. Six jets coming home.

[00:09:18]Crew on radio with approach control.

[00:09:20]Tower talking down the formation one by one. Every communication channel on the base oriented toward managing the returning squadron. Every set of eyes watching the runway. Every mind focused on the routine task of bringing six aircraft safely back to ground, not on the approach corridor from the southwest, not on what was already inbound. The strike package crossed the line of departure at 8:09 a.m. How many aircraft did Ukraine destroy in this operation, a 4, B5, or C all six? The answer matters more than the number itself, because the reason tells you everything about modern airfield strike doctrine. [music] Answer at the end. The weapons employed in this operation were a carefully selected combination. Four Storm Shadow cruise missiles. The Anglo French SCALP EG variant supplied to Ukraine under the British Ministry of Defense Assistance Program formed the primary strike package against the parked aircraft.

[00:10:10][music] Supporting them, two Ukrainian developed R360 Neptune anti-hship missiles that Ukrainian engineers had adapted for overland strike profiles.

[00:10:18]their guidance systems modified to accept land-based coordinate targeting rather than the active radar homing they use against surface vessels. The Storm Shadow is a stealthy subsonic cruise missile with a published range exceeding 550 km, a terrain following autopilot that allows it to fly napear profiles and a dual stage broh warhead specifically designed to defeat hardened structures. The initial penetrating charge punches through the first material layer, reinforced concrete, aircraft skin, whatever surface it encounters. The follow-rough munition then detonates inside the target, maximizing destructive effect against dispersed internal components, fuel systems, avionics, airframe structure, and anything else that would otherwise absorb a surface detonation without catastrophic kill. Against a parked aircraft with open cockpits, and exposed fuel ports, the Bro H warheads effect is extreme. The Storm Shadows reduced radar cross-section achieved through composite airframe materials, internal weapons carriage configuration, and shaping design to scatter radar returns makes it difficult for Xband search radars to acquire at long range when it flies a low altitude terrain masking approach.

[00:11:25]At 50 m above ground against rolling terrain, effective detection range for even a capable point defense system shrinks dramatically from its theoretical maximum. The Neptune missiles were not assigned to aircraft targets. Their target was the Pancer S1 system itself. Destroy the Pancer first, then send the storm shadows through the gap. This was the sequence that made everything else possible. Subscribe to Ukraine Radar if you want to understand how modern warfare actually works.

[00:11:51]Because what unfolds in the next 4 minutes is a masterass in sequence targeting that militarymies will study for a generation. At 8:09 a.m., the two Neptune missiles were already inbound on a lowaltitude approach from the southwest, flying nap of the Earth at approximately 50 m above terrain, using the shallow valley to mask their approach from the pancier's radar until the final engagement geometry made detection inevitable. The Pancier's engagement radar operates in the Xband with a search arc that prioritizes the most likely threat axes. But at 50 m altitude, against the terrain clutter of the southwestern approach, the effective detection range was compressed to a fraction of the systems nominal performance envelope. The Pancer crew had approximately 11 seconds of warning before the first Neptune impacted. 11 seconds is not enough time to complete an engagement sequence from an elevated readiness state. It is certainly not enough time from a normal alert posture with crew attention divided between their system and the radio traffic of a returning aircraft formation. The first Neptune hit the Pancer vehicle at 8:11 a.m. The impact detonated the missile's warhead against the vehicle's hull, and the resulting blast ignited the systems ready round ammunition in secondary explosions that destroyed the radar array, the missile launcher assembly, and the vehicle's crew compartment. The second Neptune impacted the vehicle's remains 14 seconds later. A deliberately programmed redundancy shot insurance against a partial kill result where the pancer might have been damaged but not destroyed. Retaining some engagement capability against the following storm shadows. The pancer that was supposed to defend Milovo's western approach was no longer a factor. 16 seconds after the second Neptune impact, the first storm shadow crossed the airfield perimeter fence at low altitude. The Sue34s had landed in sequence. The formation commander aircraft lead element tail number 35 had touched down first at 8:08 a.m. Standard formation recovery procedure lead lands clears the runway.

[00:13:44]Subsequent aircraft follow at established spacing intervals. By the time the storm shadow package crossed the perimeter at 8:12 a.m. The tactical situation on the Western Apron was exactly what 11 weeks of observation had predicted it would be. All six aircraft were on the ground. The first four had reached their assigned hard stands and were parked. engines completing their cooldown cycles, cockpits beginning to open as pilots ran shutdown checklists.

[00:14:08]Ground crew vehicles were already positioned around hard stands one and two, the priority aircraft. The last two aircraft were still taxiing toward their assigned positions, moving at normal ground speed along the taxi way. The fuel Bowsers had not yet reached the apron. They were on route from the fuel point approximately 4 minutes [music] away. The first storm shadow impacted hard stand position 1 at 8, 12:00 a.m.

[00:14:29]and 38 seconds. The Brosch warhead penetrated the SUe34's forward fuselage section and detonated inside the airframe. The internal detonation ruptured both internal fuel tanks. A SUe34 carries approximately 12,000 kg of internal fuel, though the returning aircraft had burned most of it on the mission and carried significantly less.

[00:14:49]What remained? Perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 L of aviation kerosene. ignited in a fireball that expanded laterally across hardstand one and rolled toward hardstand 27 meters to the north. The aircraft on hardstand 2 caught fire before the second storm shadow arrived.

[00:15:05]The heat from the adjacent explosion ignited fuel vent ports and external fuel residue on the second aircraft's wing surfaces, beginning a burn that the second storm shadows detonation converted from a fire into a destruction event. Two aircraft destroyed in the first 30 seconds. The second storm shadow targeting hard stands three and four impacted 11 seconds after the first. The timing sequence had been calculated to prevent the shock wave from the first impact interfering with the terminal guidance of the following missiles. A spacing discipline that required precise launch timing from the firing platforms. The third and fourth aircraft on the Western Apron received the same treatment as the first two. The chain of secondary explosions across hard stands 1 through 4 created a continuous firefront along the front row of the Western Apron. The wall of fire was visible on satellite thermal imaging as a concentrated bloom against the cold morning air temperature. What would NATO have done differently in this scenario?

[00:15:58]Would you have sequenced the strikes the same way? Air defense suppression first, then the apron strike, or gone simultaneous and accepted the higher risk that the pancer might get a shot off before the storm shadows arrived?

[00:16:10]Comment your tactical analysis below.

[00:16:12]The third and fourth storm shadows were assigned to the two aircraft still taxiing toward their hardstand positions. This was the most tactically complex element of the entire strike package because moving targets introduce positional uncertainty that parked aircraft don't present. A parked Sue34 on a GPS surveyed hardstand has a known position to within a few meters. An aircraft taxiing at 7 to 10 km/h along a taxiway has a position that changes continuously, and the missile's terminal guidance has to account for the gap between when the targeting solution was computed and when the warhead arrives.

[00:16:44]The targeting cell had addressed this by programming the missiles to engage at the calculated taxi end point, the hardstand position toward which each taxiing aircraft was moving rather than the last known position of the aircraft in motion. The logic. If the aircraft was taxiing normally, it would reach the end point at approximately the same time as the missile. If it stopped short, the miss distance would be manageable given the warhead's blast radius. If it accelerated, it might overshoot, but Sue34s don't accelerate sharply on taxiways. The calculation was correct.

[00:17:16]The fifth aircraft was hit at its anticipated arrival point while still in motion. The warhead detonating as the nose gear passed through the target coordinate. The impact destroyed the forward fuselage in both engines, bringing the aircraft to a halt with its tail section extending back onto the taxi way, partially blocking subsequent access. The sixth aircraft, the last to land, two hardstand positions away from its assigned location, was hit at the starboard wing route. The detonation destroyed the right engine and ignited the wing fuel cell, causing the right wing to separate. The airframe cartwheelled off the taxi way into the grass verge at the airfield's edge. 4 minutes and 22 seconds from first impact to last. Six aircraft. Western apron burning. Taxiway partially blocked. The entire morning sorty package destroyed before a single refueled aircraft could fly again. The MP A teams at three of the four perimeter positions engaged, launching missiles into the smoke, into the dissipating exhaust trails of the departing storm shadows, into whatever heat signatures their infrared seekers could acquire.

[00:18:19]They hit nothing. The storm shadows were already past their terminal phase. The missiles spent, the targets destroyed.

[00:18:26]The Neptunes were long gone. The threat that had just removed six Russian combat aircraft from operational existence was no longer in the target area. The Milovo air defense system fired after the damage was done. That is the precise definition of too late. Intercepted Russian communications in the minutes following the strike revealed a command structure in progressive disorganization. The base commander's first transmission, requested immediate air defense reinforcement from the S300 battery to the southeast. The S300 battery commander responded that his system was configured for area defense operations and lacked the authorization and doctrine to reposition for point defense of an already struck location.

[00:19:02]He required written authorization from the air defense district command to initiate a repositioning. That authorization exchange took 47 minutes.

[00:19:09]In those 47 minutes, two Ukrainian reconnaissance drones transited Milovo airspace at medium altitude unchallenged. Their purpose was not additional strike. Their purpose was battle damage assessment, confirming in imagery that could be transmitted, analyzed, and archived exactly what the ground observers had already reported from the perimeter. All six aircraft destroyed. Complete airframe loss across the formation. Combat footage verification and subsequent satellite imagery analysis confirmed the battle damage assessment. The Western Apron at Milovo was nonoperational. Direct strike damage, secondary explosions from burning airframes, fuel fires from ruptured ground fuel lines, and heat damage to the concrete apron surface had made the primary parking area unusable without engineering clearance and surface repair. That repair cycle took 11 days. 11 days during which the operational throughput of a complete Russian tactical aviation element was disrupted. Aircraft redistributed to alternate bases. Missions rerouted through different launch corridors.

[00:20:08]Operational planning assumptions rebuilt around a degraded basing network. The Pancer S1 system destroyed in the opening seconds of the strike was not replaced at Milovo within the assessment window. Satellite imagery collected over the following weeks showed the base's northern perimeter without a point defense vehicle. Whether this reflected production constraints from western sanctions on electronics components or competing demands across multiple installations, the result was the same.

[00:20:34]Milovo's western approach was undefended by point defense for at least 11 days following the strike. Ukrainian targeting analysts noted this. The information was retained and cross-referenced against future operational planning cycles. If you believe precise targeting that removes military hardware from the battlefield while minimizing civilian risk represents the tactical and ethical evolution modern warfare demands, type Ukraine radar in the comments. The estimated value of equipment destroyed in this single operation. six SU34 fullback airframes at an estimated replacement value of approximately $50 million each, accounting for production costs under current manufacturing conditions with component sourcing degraded by sanctions, totals $300 million for the aircraft alone. The Pancer S1 system adds approximately $14 million. The two fuel Bowsers caught in secondary blast effects, support vehicles, and ground infrastructure bring the total hardware loss to approximately $316 million. $316 million in Russian military hardware destroyed.

[00:21:34]Ukrainian losses in the operation. Zero personnel. The reconnaissance cell extracted safely through its established egress route after the strike. The cell's cover intact. Their observation position abandoned in a controlled sequence that left no intelligence indicators for Russian security forces to analyze. The launch platforms that employed the Storm Shadow and Neptune missiles. Operating from Ukrainian controlled territory returned to base without incident. No Ukrainian aircraft were lost, no personnel killed or wounded, zero Ukrainian losses, $316 million in Russian hardware, and 11 weeks of patient professional intelligence work that made it possible.

[00:22:12]The strike validated something Ukrainian planners had been building toward through months of smaller scale operations against Russian logistics and support infrastructure. Airfields are more vulnerable to precision strike during the arrival window than at any other point in their operational cycle.

[00:22:25]The departure sequence disperses aircraft separates crews from aircraft and maintains a degree of operational flux that makes precise targeting harder. The arrival sequence does the opposite. It brings aircraft together.

[00:22:38]It parks them in a predictable geometry.

[00:22:40]It fills the ground around them with support personnel and vehicles. And it does all of this in the same location at approximately the same time day after day because air operations require scheduling discipline and scheduling discipline produces patterns. Patterns are targets. The Millerovo strike also demonstrated something specific about the interaction between reconnaissance, patience, and strike effectiveness. The 11week intelligence building phase was not an inefficiency. It was the foundation of the result. A strike launched in week two with partial pattern data, uncertain hardstand assignments, and no confirmed pancer position might have destroyed one or two aircraft and alerted the base to the surveillance presence, [music] collapsing the intelligence asset for minimal return. The decision to wait multiplied the strike's effectiveness by an order of magnitude. Ukraine doesn't just use weapons. Ukraine finds new ways to fight, and patient intelligence is one of the most powerful tools in that arsenal. The operational lesson extends beyond this single strike. Every Russian military installation that operates on a predictable schedule, and military installations almost all do, because predictability is operationally necessary is potentially vulnerable to the same approach. The question is not whether the pattern exists. The question is whether an intelligence cell has the access, the time, and the resource support to map it. Ukrainian reconnaissance capabilities developed significantly throughout the conflict, driven by the realization that precision strike requires precision intelligence and by a military culture that came to value the intelligence professional as much as the soldier in the trench. The reconnaissance cell at Milovo operated for 11 weeks without being detected. A professional standard that deserves recognition alongside the strike itself.

[00:24:19]The pilots of the six destroyed aircraft were not present on the apron when the missiles arrived. They had completed their post-flight debriefs and moved to crew facilities before the strike package crossed the perimeter. Ukrainian sources confirmed that the strike was timed to the window when aircraft would be maximally vulnerable. Engines cooled, fuel exposed, systems open, while crew exposure would be minimized. This timing decision built into the targeting package reflects a targeting discipline that distinguishes between destroying enemy military capability and causing unnecessary casualties among military personnel who are not themselves present as threats. Russia has made no equivalent distinction in its strikes against Ukrainian cities. Russian tactical aviation, including aircraft based at Millerovo and identical installations, has delivered unguided munitions against residential areas, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure throughout the conflict. The contrast between a strike calibrated to target hardware while the pilots are in the messaul and strikes that target apartment blocks while residents sleep is not subtle. Now, [music] the answer to the quiz I posed earlier.

[00:25:23]How many aircraft did Ukraine destroy?

[00:25:25][music] The answer is C. All six. every airframe in the returning formation.

[00:25:30]Every aircraft that had launched from Milovo that morning was destroyed before it could fly again. And the significance of that number isn't just the total.

[00:25:37]It's what six out of six means in targeting terms. [music] It means the weapontoarget pairing covered the complete parking formation without a gap. It means the positional intelligence was accurate enough that two missiles assigned to moving targets hit their intercept points correctly. It means the sequencing pancer first, apron second, taxi intercepts third. Executed without a timing failure that would have allowed any aircraft to escape the engagement window. Six out of six is a planning achievement, not luck.

[00:26:05]Planning. The battle damage value breaks down this way. Six SU34 airframes at approximately $50 million replacement cost each, $300 million. One Pancier S1 system at approximately $14 million. two fuel Bowsers and associated ground support vehicles at several hundred,000.

[00:26:22]Total estimated hardware loss, $316 million, achieved with four Storm Shadow missiles and two Neptune anti-hship missiles adapted for land strike. A munition expenditure valued at approximately $7 to $8 million at export pricing. The return on investment is stark. $8 million of Ukrainian employed munitions destroyed $316 million of Russian hardware, a ratio of roughly 40 to1. That is the arithmetic of precision warfare executed well. Was the decision to spend 11 weeks building the intelligence picture before acting the right tactical call? Or should the strike have been launched earlier with incomplete data and accepted a lower probability of complete airframe destruction? Could Russian-based security with the resources available to a major military installation? Have detected the surveillance cell if they had applied different counter intelligence protocols? And if you were commanding Russian air defense at Millerovo, what single change to your procedures would have made this strike harder to execute? Those questions don't have simple answers. But the military organizations that ask them seriously, that use operational failures as data points rather than embarrassments to be minimized, are the ones that adapt.

[00:27:29]Russia's response to the Millerovo strike included enhanced perimeter security directives and a standing order to vary aircraft parking patterns at forward deployed bases. Whether those directives were implemented consistently is something only continued surveillance could answer. Ukraine's response was simpler. They started watching other bases. Will Russia adapt its airfield procedures fast enough and consistently enough to prevent the next precision strike? Or is the operational predictability that makes their air campaign function also an inherent vulnerability they cannot eliminate without degrading their own combat effectiveness? That is a genuinely open question. Comment your analysis below.

[00:28:04]Subscribe to Ukraine Radar because we break down the battles that textbooks will study for decades. Real tactics, real consequences. Ukraine Radar. The Western Apron at Milovo is quiet now.

[00:28:16]Engineering teams have cleared the major debris. The taxi way is open, but the scorch marks burned into the concrete remain, visible in commercial satellite imagery to anyone looking for them.

[00:28:26]Permanent reminders that in modern warfare, the most dangerous thing a military installation can do is be predictable. And that 11 weeks of watching is sometimes worth more than 11 months of fighting. Stay vigilant.