When news broke last week that U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration had allowed Ukraine to fire U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System missiles at targets in the Kursk region of western Russia, the Russian Air Force prepared ATACMS, each collecting up to $100,000, collected 950 submunitions to rain down.

The storm finally hit early Monday morning. “What the fuck? “It’s exploding!” a Russian soldier exclaimed in a video as at least one of the 3,700-pound ATACMS exploded over Khalino Air Base in Kursk, 70 miles from the Russian-Ukrainian border. The range of an ATACMS is up to 190 miles.

The raid may have resulted in “the airfield possibly being temporarily taken out of service,” Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian analysis group, reported. That’s good news for the 20,000-strong Ukrainian force that holds a 250-square-mile salient around the town of Sudzha, 50 miles southwest of Khalino. This force expects a massive Russian attack in the coming days.

Khalino is the closest major airfield to the Kursk battlefield. Therefore, it makes sense that the Russian Air Force has stationed its main ground attack aircraft, subsonic Sukhoi Su-25s, at the base. Russia’s Su-25 forces have been severely bled by Ukrainian air defenses during Russia’s 33 months of all-out war against Ukraine: the Ukrainians have shot down or damaged.

The Khalino attack may have put additional Su-25s out of action. But the Russians have moved to build protective walls at the base that could potentially provide some protection for the planes. And it is possible that many of the Su-25s were evacuated shortly before the ATACMS attack. “Activity at the base had decreased noticeably in recent days, making it unclear whether a significant number of aircraft were hit,” Frontelligence Insight said.

That doesn’t mean the base – particularly its fuel tanks, command facilities and warehouses, as well as nearby air defense batteries – wasn’t worth attacking with one or more of Ukraine’s modest ATACMS stocks, which may have numbered only a few dozen missiles at its peak.

The attack on Khalino could deprive Russian drone forces of a key frontline base. And if the attack caused surface-to-air missile batteries or radars to burst into flames, it could create a new gap in Russia’s air defense. According to Frontellience Insight, this could “create opportunities for future attacks with cheaper and more numerous drones.”

Monday’s ATACMS attack is the third major Ukrainian depth attack on strategic targets in and around Kursk since the United States – and later the United Kingdom and France – allowed Ukraine to use its best foreign-made missiles against targets inside Russia.

As the battle for Kursk escalates, further Ukrainian attacks are likely. And further Russian retaliation is also likely. Thursday’s horrific ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro is widely seen as a response to the ATACMS bearing down on Russia.

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