Stefan Korshak reports in the Kyiv Post:
The main and reserve Russian command posts in the Donetsk area were struck in a decapitation strike against the commander and senior staff of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army, the major Russian formation for the war in eastern Ukraine. Images of debris pointed to French-made SCALP cruise missiles, while a second target had been hit with a new US-made JDAM-LR precision weapon. The strikes came without air raid warnings and detonated within several minutes of each other. Lt. Gen. Sergei Milchakov, commander of the 51st Combined Arms Army, was holding a meeting at the site and was reported killed along with several deputies, though that has not been confirmed.
Ukraine’s armed forces struck two Russian command posts in occupied Donetsk with a concentrated wave of air-launched missiles, in what appeared to be an attempted decapitation strike against the commander and senior staff of a major Russian formation.
Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed that the main and reserve Russian command posts in the Donetsk area had been hit but did not identify the weapons used. Images of debris pointed to French-made SCALP cruise missiles, while a Ukrainian defense publication said a second target might have been hit with a newly developed US-made JDAM-LR precision weapon.
Neither the reported use of the JDAM-LR nor claims that the commander of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army was killed have been confirmed.
Residents of Donetsk reported seeing or hearing between six and 13 heavy explosions late Wednesday and early Thursday. The strikes reportedly came without air raid warnings and detonated within several minutes of each other, according to local accounts.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the occupied Donetsk region, said Ukrainian aircraft had struck an industrial section of the city with “several” SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles. He said eight civilians were wounded, including two girls. Kyiv Post could not independently verify the claim.
Suspected 51st Army headquarters hit beneath apartment complex
The first target was an unfinished apartment complex near the Donetsk City shopping center. Images published by the Ukrainian OSINT group CyberBoroshno showed that its reinforced-concrete ground floor and two underground parking levels had been completed.
Ukrainian military information channel Exilenova said the parking garage had been converted into the main headquarters of Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army, one of the principal formations involved in Moscow’s offensive in Donetsk Oblast.
CyberBoroshno said six missiles appeared to have penetrated the structure and detonated inside it.
“Six missiles definitely penetrated into the parking lot. It was completely f*cked up,” the group said.
Photographs circulated by media in occupied Donetsk showed a metal fragment marked “MBDA France,” consistent with the French SCALP EG. The provenance of the fragment has not been independently verified.
Storm Shadow and SCALP EG are the British and French versions of an Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile manufactured by MBDA. Designed to penetrate hardened, high-value targets, the missile has been used by Ukraine against Russian command posts, ammunition depots and other military facilities since deliveries began in 2023.
Ukraine has also used SCALP missiles against Russian military targets near Donetsk, including an April strike on a drone storage and launch site near the city’s occupied airport.
Britain said in August that it would allow MBDA to share classified technical information on British components with Ukraine and France to support plans for the production of SCALP missiles in Ukraine.
Some Ukrainian platforms suggested that FP-5 Flamingo missiles, rather than European cruise missiles, had struck the parking complex. The Ukrainian-made Flamingo carries a much larger warhead and is designed to detonate at or near the surface, making it less suited than SCALP to penetrating a hardened underground target. Ukraine has used the Flamingo in increasingly frequent strikes against targets inside Russia and Russian-occupied territory.
Images from Donetsk showed fires and smoke rising through the roof of the parking structure, consistent with weapons penetrating the structure before detonating. They did not conclusively establish which missiles were used.
Reports of Russian commander’s death remain unconfirmed
Some Ukrainian news platforms reported that Lt. Gen. Sergei Milchakov, identified in open sources as commander of the 51st Combined Arms Army, was holding a meeting at the site and was killed along with several deputies.
No official Ukrainian or Russian source has confirmed those reports.
Russian news platforms said no military facility had been hit and reported civilian casualties. Pushilin said eight civilians were wounded but did not report any deaths.
The Institute for the Study of War said the Russian newspaper Izvestia initially reported that Russian military personnel might have been killed before deleting the claim. The independent Russian outlet Astra reported that the strike hit abandoned buildings near parked Russian military vehicles rather than the nearby shopping center.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a Thursday statement that its air forces had successfully struck “the main and reserve command posts” of Russian forces in the Donetsk area with air-launched missiles.
The scale of Russian losses was still being assessed, the statement said.
Second suspected command post heavily damaged
A second wave struck the grounds of a former Soviet research institute about two kilometers from the parking garage.
The site, consisting of several university-style buildings, has reportedly been used by Russian forces since the Kremlin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian OSINT reports said the complex contained troop accommodation, communications equipment, storage facilities and command centers. Some reports linked it to Russia’s 2nd Combined Arms Army.
Six or seven munitions reportedly hit the complex. Photographs published by Russia’s state-controlled TASS news agency and Reuters showed buildings leveled or with exterior walls blown out. Other images showed extensive structural collapse in the main above-ground building.
Was the new JDAM-LR used?
Ukrainian defense publication Defense Express said the damage at the former research institute might have been caused by a newly developed US-made weapon called the JDAM-LR, or Joint Direct Attack Munition–Long Range.
The report cited an image of a metal fragment marked “6F8W7.” Based on its shape and markings, Defense Express linked it to Ferra Aerospace, an Australian company that manufactures components for Boeing’s JDAM-ER and JDAM-LR weapons.
The fragment does not establish that a JDAM-LR was used, because Ferra supplies parts for both systems and the provenance of the image has not been independently verified.
The JDAM-LR is a powered precision munition that combines a JDAM guidance system and wing kit with a compact turbojet. Boeing says it can carry a 500-pound payload more than 300 nautical miles, or about 555 kilometers. The US Air Force cleared the weapon for initial production for the US Navy in August after a series of tests.
There has been no public announcement that the United States supplied JDAM-LR weapons to Ukraine, and neither Kyiv nor Washington has confirmed their use in Donetsk.
Ukraine has operated the earlier JDAM-ER, or Joint Direct Attack Munition–Extended Range, since 2023. In May, the US approved a potential $373.6 million sale of 1,532 JDAM-ER guidance kits to Ukraine.
The JDAM-ER has a reported range of more than 70 kilometers. Donetsk’s distance from safer Ukrainian aircraft launch areas would make its use difficult, although not impossible, and would expose the launching aircraft to Russian air defenses.
That range problem is the main basis for speculation that the longer-range JDAM-LR might have been used. At present, however, the available evidence supports only a hypothesis.
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