Missile fall in Sevastopol could not have been a deliberate attack
The recent landing of a downed missile on a beach in occupied Sevastopol could not have been a deliberate attack by Ukraine.
This is reported by Bild.
The publication’s analyst, Julian Repke notes that initially Russia claimed that it shot down a Ukrainian ATACMS missile over the beach.
But later, they abandoned this version, accusing Ukraine of a deliberate attack.
Julian Repke gave his arguments for why this is not true.
The beach on which the missile fragments fell is located 4 kilometers from the military airfield and 3 kilometers north of the Russian Navy base.
Earlier, Ukraine openly stated that Russian military facilities in Crimea would be targets of attacks, warning of the dangers of traveling to the peninsula.
Wreckage of Tor SAM missiles was found on the beach, indicating Russian air defense work at the site.
Each ATACMS missile is equipped with 950 fragmentation warheads, which are needed to inflict as much damage as possible. These are the ones that exploded when the missile was shot down.
The published video from the beach shows that most of the fragments fell into the sea, not along the beach but across it.
This means that ATACMS was heading for another target and was shot down on the approach, while a small part of the fragments fell on the beach.
According to analyst Julian Repke, in the case of a deliberate attack, the damage would have been many times greater.