Ukrainian troops strike a Russian depot in the Bryansk region housing North Korea’s munitions. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting was postponed, U.S. officials at Ramstein say. The Ukrainian Air Force’s new bomber brigade will fly French jets, according to Forbes.
Ukrainian troops strike Russian depot in Bryansk region housing North Korea’s munitions
The Unmanned Systems Forces and other branches of the Ukrainian military struck a Russian depot in the Bryansk region housing ammunition made by North Korea and Russian glide bombs.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said: “The Unmanned Systems Forces together with other branches of the Ukrainian military caused fire damage to the 67th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian defense ministry in Bryansk region.”
The arsenal stored ammunition for missile systems and artillery weapons, including those delivered from North Korea, as well as glide bombs. A large part of the ammunition was sitting out in the open.
The local authorities closed the roads near the arsenal following explosions at the facility. The results of the strikes are being clarified.
The Ukrainian General Staff wrote that “damage to such arsenals creates serious logistical problems for the Russian army, which significantly reduces the offensive potential of the occupiers on threatening axes.”
The Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday that it had intercepted 47 Ukrainian drones overnight in a number of regions and over the Azov Sea.
The governors of the Krasnodar and Bryansk regions reported drone attacks overnight, but didn’t elaborate.
Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting postponed, U.S. officials at Ramstein say
The meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany will not happen on Saturday as was originally planned, American military officials at Ramstein said in an emailed note to reporters on Wednesday.
U.S. President Joe Biden has put off his trip to Germany “in order to oversee preparations for and the response to Hurricane Milton, in addition to the ongoing response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene across the Southeast,” the U.S.-managed Ramstein Air Base said referring to an earlier statement by the White House. “The October 12, 2024 event is postponed. Announcements about future Ukraine Defense Contact Group meetings will be forthcoming,” the message reads.
Biden was due to chair a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Saturday. It was planned as the first one featuring heads of state and government.
The White House said on Tuesday that Biden would remain in the U.S. because of the powerful hurricane that was moving toward Florida and expected to make landfall Wednesday night.
It is unclear if the rescheduled meeting will include national leaders.
The Ukrainian Air Force’s new bomber brigade will fly French jets, according to Forbes
France will send Mirage 2000s fighters to Ukraine in early 2025. As the warplanes arrive, they could fill out a new brigade that would fight alongside the battle-hardened 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade, adding mass to the Ukrainian air force’s deep strikes on Russian warships, air-defense batteries, headquarters and supply depots in occupied southern and eastern Ukraine, Forbes’ David Axe said in a recent piece.
Ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000-5 fighters will arrive in Ukraine in the first quarter of next year, French defense minister Sébastien Lecornu announced Tuesday. But first, the delta-wing supersonic fighters “will be equipped with new equipment,” Lecornu wrote, including systems for air-ground combat and electronic warfare.
The Ukrainian air force will arm its former French jets with the same French-made munitions it’s already hanging on its old Soviet-made Mikoyan MiG-29, Sukhoi Su-24 and Sukhoi Su-27 warplanes. These include SCALP-EG cruise missiles and Hammer glide bombs.
Armed for precision attacks on ground targets as far as 155 miles away, the single-seat, single-engine Mirages will reinforce the Ukrainian air force’s aging, swing-wing Su-24s.
Ukraine inherited around 200 of the 1970s-vintage Su-24s when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Thirty years later, just a dozen or so of the two-seat, twin-engine bombers were still active with the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade.
That the Ukrainians have lost more Su-24s than they had at the start of the wider war speaks to their determined effort to identify old Su-24 airframes at various storage sites and restore them to flightworthy status. Older pilots and navigators have come out of retirement to fill the jets’ cockpits.
The Ukrainian air force clearly has plans to retain the Su-24s in service for the foreseeable future. It’s even developing a new locally made glide bomb to give the bombers more weapons options.
The Mirage is a multi-role, delta-winged fourth-gen fighter jet manufactured by French company Dassault Aviation. Around 600 of these aircraft have been produced since it was designed in the late 1970s, and they are currently operated by a number of militaries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The Mirage 2000 fighter jets remain in service with the French air force, but are being replaced by the Dassault Rafale warplanes.