Ukrainian soldiers recount Russian raid on Kharkov air defense command bunker

Ukrainian soldiers said the Kharkov air defense command bunker was designed to withstand a nuclear explosion, but it was hit by two Russian Kalibr missiles.

A documentary released last week by Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Komarov shows the remains of the Kharkiv air defense headquarters, one of the first targets hit by Russian forces on the opening day of the campaign in the neighboring country.

Western military experts said that Russia's large-scale airstrikes that opened the campaign were ineffective because Ukrainian units had dispersed their forces and moved to reserve areas in advance.

One of the exceptions, however, was the Kharkiv air defense command post. At 5:15 a.m. on February 24, 2022, a Russian Kalibr cruise missile crashed into the grass outside a base in Kharkiv and exploded. Its impact tore through several meters of soil and solid concrete blocks, collapsing part of the underground bunker below and killing at least five servicemen at the command post on the spot.

Ukrainian soldiers tell about the devastating raid on the Kharkov air defense command post — The Kharkov air defense command bunker was destroyed by Russia in February 2022. Video: *Dmytro Komarov*

"The attack was absolutely precise. The enemy knew the coordinates of the bunker and planned the attack perfectly, because the structure was built during the Soviet era. The Russian forces have the entire design of the bunker, it is in some archive in Moscow," Vadym Syniavsky, an air defense officer in Kharkov, admitted.

The bunker was once used by a Soviet military nuclear unit.

"It was designed to withstand a nuclear explosion from a distance of 5 km. In theory, a cruise missile warhead could not threaten this location, but two Kalibr missiles hit the same location and led to the same result. Another missile crashed into the weapons storage area and destroyed everything inside," Syniavsky recalled.

Ukrainian officers admitted that they could not detect the incoming Kalibr missiles because Russian forces were using their electronic warfare advantage to the fullest. "The entire radar display was blank, we could barely see anything," Syniavsky said.

Gen. Serhii Melnyk, commander of the Kharkov defense forces, revealed that 90% of the air defense systems in the province were wiped out in the first hours of the conflict. "I called the commander of the 302nd Air Defense Missile Brigade and asked why the positions were not firing. He replied that 'almost the entire brigade was destroyed'," Gen. Melnyk said.

Justin Bronk, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the UK, said that the Kalibr missile attack on the Kharkov air defense command post was a painful lesson for the Ukrainian army, causing them to quickly disperse their forces and cause a series of difficulties for the enemy, preventing the Russian air force from completely controlling the skies of its neighbor.