Ukraine’s air defense under pressure

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Washington (AFP) – Air defense plays a vital and highly effective role in Ukraine’s response to the Russian invasion, but it is coming under pressure from intensifying attacks from Moscow.

In trouble on the ground, Russia has been ramping up its bombing strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since October, a particularly heavy barrage of attacks this week.

While kyiv has so far prevented Moscow from taking control of airspace, Ukraine’s allies are aware that Ukraine’s air defense will have to be strengthened to withstand this deluge of fire.

kyiv is pressing countries that support it, especially the United States, to provide it with advanced equipment such as Patriot missiles and F-15 fighters.

“Ukraine is still fighting and its air defense capabilities will be essential for future success,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday.

“An integrated air and missile defense system will be needed to repel Russian air attacks,” he added, noting that Tuesday’s strikes represented “probably the strongest salvo since the beginning of the war.”

The Pentagon identified 111 Russian missile launches and 26 kamikaze drone attacks.

air superiority

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ukraine’s air defense relied heavily on Soviet-era aircraft and anti-missile systems, which were used effectively to prevent Moscow from controlling the airspace.

This response affected “almost every aspect of Russian air power,” said Karl Mueller of the Rand Corporation, a US think tank specializing in military and national security strategy.

According to him, the Ukrainian medium- and long-range systems forced the Russian planes to resort to limited reserves of missiles, since they had to fire from afar in order not to be destroyed.

In addition, short-range systems have “really limited the ability of the Russians to use their attack helicopters and bomber aircraft on the battlefield,” the analyst continued.

Mueller attributed the success of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems to several factors, including the fact that the country “has many surface-to-air missile systems” that were “operated efficiently.”

Ukraine’s air defenses were also fully mobile, he added, helping them spread out and evade Russian attacks.

On the other hand, “the Russian air force is not very good at attacking anti-aircraft defenses,” unlike the United States, it does not have specialized units to fulfill this mission, Mueller added.

“High priority”

Since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian air defense has been enriched with sophisticated systems, such as the US-supplied NASAMS type or Germany’s Iris-T, and also older equipment such as the S-300 and HAWK systems and Stinger missiles. .

But kyiv and its allies are convinced that more is needed.

During a meeting on Wednesday, the international coalition supporting Ukraine assessed, according to General Milley, “how to provide the right combination of anti-aircraft systems and munitions so that Ukraine retains control of the skies.”

kyiv’s forces are already managing to shoot down Russian missiles and drones, with 102 targets destroyed since November 11, according to the Ukrainian military.

But no air defense system is capable of blocking all attacks, as demonstrated by the bombing raids that left millions of people without electricity on Tuesday right in the middle of the first snowfall.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said he was “convinced that the time for the Patriots has come,” in a tweet on Thursday. Earlier in the week, he had already ordered F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.

Washington is reluctant to provide Ukraine with these missile batteries or these long-range aircraft for fear that Moscow will see it as an escalation of the conflict.

“But in the long run, the Ukrainians will need Western-made planes,” Mueller said.

With the resurgence of Russian attacks, bolstering Ukraine’s anti-aircraft capabilities is “clearly a high priority in terms of helping Ukrainians survive,” he said.

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