Ukraine blitzes Russia's Navy and Putin resorts to Oreshnik missiles as frontline supplies drain

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Ports, roads, and refineries burn as Ukraine's drone warfare reaches new heights. But Russia has launched not one, but possibly two Orishnik missiles in what can only be described as a desperate move by Putin.

[00:00:23]>> I'm Philip Ingram standing in for Jerome Starky and this is the Sun Front Line.

[00:00:28]Putin is throwing everything he has at Ukraine in what has become the deadliest month for civilian casualties since the war began. Hundreds of drones pummeled Ukrainian cities on May the 23rd. But Keev is not just taking the hits.

[00:00:41]They're punching back very hard.

[00:00:43]Ukrainian drones have successfully struck the massive Vulgar refinery, choking off the fuel Putin needs for his war machine and damaging Russian fuel processing capability even further.

[00:00:56]Desperate to break the deadlock, the Kremlin unleashed its terrifying state-of-the-art ornik ballistic missile, which flies at hypersonic speeds. I'll explain the difference in a moment. The price tag, a staggering $400 million. The result for the Russians as ever, absolute humiliation. While some missiles struck heave and donets regions, one of these highly touted super weapons misfired completely, dropping out of the sky like a stone. A $400 million dud. So we keep hearing about these Orishnik um medium-range ballistic missiles and we hear them described as hypersonic missiles as well. What's the difference and what are they? Well, the arric medium range medium range is defined um in part of the um counterpoliferation treaties. Um you get short range, medium range, and long range. A medium-range ballistic missile is one with a range of up to 5,500 km. Why does it why is it called a medium-range ballistic missile? Because it's got the capability of carrying nuclear warheads. How do you know whether it's carrying conventional warheads or nuclear warheads? You only know whenever it goes bang. And that's the worrying thing. A ballistic missile flies in a very high level straight up.

[00:02:12]Once it gets to the top of its apogee, it comes down in a ballistic path. Very fast indeed. Going in a h at hypersonic speeds. that's faster than the speed of sound. Um it's very difficult to intercept. Um and that is why it has a devastating effect on the ground. It doesn't take long from launch to land.

[00:02:32]Whereas a hypersonic missile tends to be the phrase that's used for a cruise type missile that flies like an aircraft but flies significantly faster than the speed of sound. Three, four, five, six times the speed of sound in the same way that a ballistic missile does as it's falling back to Earth. Um, one's going horizontally and then dives into the target. The other goes up and comes down. The Orchnic is a scary missile.

[00:02:58]The only thing the Ukrainians have got to be able to deal with that particular threat is the uh US supplied Patriot missile. But even then, they're not as successful against ballistic missiles as they are against hypersonic missiles.

[00:03:12]The hypersonic missile the Russians use is the Kinsal. Um and the Russians said that the Kinszel um cannot be shot out of the sky. The Ukrainians are proving them very wrong. And Ukraine's intelligence services, the HUR or uh sometimes known as the GUR, are proving they can paralyze Russia without firing a shot. They've managed to hack and engineer a colossal traffic jam on a critical Russian controlled highway, strangling logistics and leaving Russian armor stranded. How is it that the Ukrainian intelligence is disrupting Russian supply routes? Well, it's down to um them hacking into the systems that are pro providing the control, but it's also down to Ukrainian use of medium range drones. They've now got drones that can fly from Ukrainian controlled territory right down into the Sea of Azoff, covering all of the routes in the captured areas of Ukraine that the Russians were using for their safe logistic passage in this land bridge that goes from Russia down to Crimea.

[00:04:15]We're seeing videos on a daily basis where Ukrainian drones are attacking military convoys that were on once safe roads. That means and those roads are right along the coast. That means that nowhere is safe in Russia's rear areas to be able to um carry out logistic resupply of their troops. That means the troops are suffering a loss of their combat supplies, fuel, water, uh petrol, oil and lubricants, but more importantly ammunition and people. Um and it also means that uh the Russians cannot move uh with the impunity that they had been doing beforehand. And that is putting pressure on the forces in Crimea. And we're seeing Ukraine continue to attack Crimea. They're slowly but surely strangling it from the land bridge and the Kesh bridge that is uh linking it to Russia whilst the Ukrainians continue to remove the air defense capabilities that there are across Crimea. I think there's more brewing for Crimea. We'll have to watch that. Um and we'll watch it closely and bring you any updates that we get in the in the near future.

[00:05:24]Meanwhile, the Black Sea fleet is still taking an absolute battering. Ukrainian drones have raided Novarosque, severely damaging the Russian warship Admiral Essen. And that was on the May on May the 23rd. And if you want to know why the ship got hit, just look at this incredible footage of the Russian air defenses.

[00:05:50]It's blind panic, total chaos. tracer fire spraying blindly into the dark while Ukrainian drones slip right through the net. Ukrainian intelligence has analyzed how the Russians carry out their defenses very carefully indeed by raiding these areas many times beforehand. They look at uh where the vulnerabilities are and they fly their drones um and their capabilities through those vulnerabilities. But on the ground, it's a brutal 15 km wide meat grinder. Ukrainian lines in Kosan and are under intense pressure and have come dangerously close to collapsing. So why do we describe the front line as 15 km deep? Because it used to be um in the cold war days we describe the front line as the forward line of own troops and it would be the distance um for direct fire uh and immediately supporting indirect fire weapons. So you're talking of you up to a kilometer deep in a front line, but we're now under 15 km and that's down to the use of drones, FPV drones.

[00:06:53]They've got a range of um you know 15 km um is uh a small distance. Uh they go another 10 or 15 km behind that and we've got them flying 30 odd kilometers.

[00:07:06]That means that they are creating this zone, this kill zone that is 15 km deep.

[00:07:13]um as an average um in some places it's bigger, in other places it's smaller, but that makes it very very difficult for anyone to operate inside that area.

[00:07:23]At the moment, the Ukrainians are dominating it. They're proving to the Russians just how effective their drone warfare is, which is why we're seeing the Russians responding with their own drones trying to dominate it. Um but um by using their infantry tactics and small groups of two, three or four individuals trying to sneak their way through uh avoid the drones that are trying to snipe at them um and to get to a point where they will then put a flag in the ground, take a photograph that can be dual and then they either get killed or they scurry back to their lines again so that um they can claim they've captured a piece of territory.

[00:08:00]This 15 km piece that goes almost 1,000 km the whole way along the the front line um is contested territory. And this is why it's so difficult to say who's advancing and who's retreating. Up to the 26th of May, Russian forces uh suffered a net loss of 38 km. Not a lot, but it's a change. The Russians are on the back foot and are retreating.

[00:08:27]Ukrainian heroes have liberated the settlement of Zapsilia. British intelligence has just dropped a bombshell and this was the new head of GCHQ in her first speech talked of 500,000 Russian soldiers um having been killed or wounded in this senseless war.

[00:08:43]Now that figure is slightly different to what we're getting out of um Ukrainian intelligence which is saying it's about 1.3 almost 1.4 million. Um the Ukrainian intelligence estimate has in the past been uh corroborated by US and UK intelligence. So there's a slight difference here, but we're talking huge numbers. Absolutely huge numbers. Um and um this is probably just dead. Um severely wounded is taking individuals away from the battlefield as well. Putin is lashing out at the West.

[00:09:16]The war is spilling over. A Russian drone struck an apartment block in Romania. A NATO member, but it's not going to stimulate article 5. An attack on one is an attack on all because it wasn't a deliberate attack. Uh the NATO response is likely to be a stiff letter.

[00:09:32]Here at home, the head of GCHQ has issued a stern warning saying that Russia's relentlessly targeting infrastructure with cyber attacks. But the West is finally giving Ukraine the wings it needs. President Zilinski has just secured 20 new state-of-the-art Griffin fighter aircraft from Sweden.

[00:09:50]The skies over Ukraine are about to get a lot more hostile for Russian pilots.

[00:09:55]Okay. And now for um some of your questions. Of course, remember if you've got any questions, please put them in the in the comments below. We'll pick them up in our next episode. And um I think I may be doing it, but if Jerome's back, he can answer them. A very interesting question as to why the Polish um um Aegis um antib-bolistic missile systems haven't been used to intercept the Russian arishnik missiles that um have been fired at Ukraine. Um and this is down to the fact that the Aegis systems are based on NATO territory. Um if the Poles start to fire those missiles um at Russian ballistic missiles over Ukrainian territory, that is another step forward to direct involvement in the conflict. If the missiles and it was assessed those missiles were going to land in Polish territory or another NATO country's territory, then they would be used to intercept them, but not whilst they're landing on Ukrainian territory at the moment because Ukraine is not a NATO member. Russia would see that as an escalation um and would probably respond in kind and it would take us one step closer to um an all-out war with Russia, which is what um NATO countries do not want to do. And of course, Vladimir Putin, even though his drones are straying into NATO territory, doesn't want to have an all-out war with NATO because he knows he would never win that. So, our second question is um you know, why um or is there any official explanation as to why Ukrainian drones are ending up in Baltic countries? And of course, this refers to the fact that um you know, in in the Baltic countries there there were drones reported that put members of the Latvian government into shelters. Um, they were initially thought to be Russian drones. There's been some reporting to say that they were Ukrainian drones. Um, and they were more likely Ukrainian drones. This comes down to the technology failure um, and the amount of electronic warfare that is going on across the whole region. um if you get your programming wrong or your electronic warfare interferes with what you're putting into your drones and you get it 180° um out of out of sync uh on the bearings that you tell it to fly off to, it's going to go the wrong way. And that is probably what has happened here.

[00:12:10]Um luckily it didn't cause um any real effect and um the drone was shot down.

[00:12:16]This is the first time a drone was shot down over um NATO territory. Um there's still a little confusion as to whether they were uh Russian or Ukrainian, but I suspect Ukrainian were um something has just gone wrong in the in the uh the targeting system. So, thank you for watching this week. I'll be with you for another week while Jerome takes well-earned rest. You know, he will be back, I think. Um but thank you for watching today. Um I'm Philip Ingram.

[00:12:46]Please, if you like what you've seen, share it amongst your friends. Um, hit the like button. Um, and um, of course, put some comments in, put some questions in that I can answer next week. Um, and remember, I'm coming at things from a former senior intelligence officer and NATO planners perspective, whereas drone comes at them from a slightly different angle. See you again soon.