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Ukraine - Air Defense Modernization

Ukraine long argued for strong air defenses to protect against Russian aerial assaults and be capable to return fire. In August 2023, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine’s defenses were not yet capable of protecting its whole territory against Russian attacks.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said 07 June 2024 that Ukraine already has two decisions from partners regarding the supply of air defense equipment and is waiting for new ones. He said this on the air of the telethon. "The president is working, this was also a key topic yesterday (during Zelenskyi's visit to France, — ed.). We are working, the military is working, everyone is working. In the last two months, we have turned the world upside down in order to find a solution," said minister. Kuleba reminded that one of the solutions is the Patriot battery from Germany, the other is Samp-T from Italy "And there will be more decisions," he emphasized. On May 31, the German Foreign Ministry announced that it would transfer another Patriot air defense system to Ukraine and additional military aid worth 500 million euros. On June 3, it became known that Italy will send a second SAMP-T air defense system to Ukraine in response to Kyiv's request for more help to repel Russian missile attacks. On June 7, Bloomberg reported that in response to Kiev's requests to strengthen air defense, the German government is considering sending the fourth Patriot system to Ukraine . But there is no final decision yet. The Russian military’s missile and drone attacks on Ukraine terrorised civilians, destroyed essential infrastructure, and caused mayhem deep behind Ukrainian lines. The renewed bombardment is yet another demonstration of Russia’s reliance on the use of missile strikes as a show of military might – even when it is failing on the battlefields below. This time, the Kremlin aims to divert attention from its losses in the Kherson region and reassure its domestic audience of the expediency of its military campaign. The propaganda value of these aerial attacks means Russia will likely continue to use them in the future, in Ukraine and perhaps beyond.

The response to the transition of the Russians to a campaign of terrorist attacks against critical infrastructure was the replenishment of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence with Western models. A few days after the mass strikes began on 10 October 2022, Ukraine received the MIM-23 Hawk anti-aircraft missile complex. In autumn, Ukraine also received the first NASAMS and IRIS-T systems, which soon proved to be highly effective against cruise missiles. In the first months after the invasion, Ukraine’s air defence deflected about 20-30% of Russian missiles, but as of early 2023, this figure had reached 60-75%.

Russia had been unsuccessful militarily in its unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine and increasingly turned to targeting civilian infrastructure — particularly Ukraine's energy grid. The Russian attacks cut power to millions of Ukrainian civilians and affected water, transportation and much more. Additionally, the Russian attacks pose a danger to Ukrainian nuclear energy facilities. "The attacks also show Russia's willingness to increase the risk of a nuclear safety incident, which could have harmful consequences not only in Ukraine, but across the wider region as well.

Minister of Defense of Ukraine during a business conference on the Forbes platform 09 June 2022 emphasized that Ukrainian soldiers shot down quite a large number of Russian missiles and aircraft, but the defense of the sky must be significantly strengthened. "We, in Ukraine, already have protection of our sky today. It is not perfect, but believe me, we shoot down quite a lot of missiles that fly. Enemy planes no longer fly in our skies because they are afraid and know that we will shoot them down. They use old Kh-22, Kh-55 and other missiles. The aggressor shoots them from the territory of Russia, from the territory of Belarus, from the waters of the Black and even Caspian seas, from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian Crimea. The enemy is afraid to approach, because we have a very professional Air Force, and fighters of all types, branches and forces of the Armed Forces and other components of the defense forces masterfully use MANPADS," said Oleksiy Reznikov.

The “icing on the cake” was the announcement in December 2022 of the transfer of the Patriot air defence system battery to Ukraine, which was discussed during President Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington. Currently, the delivery of two Patriot batteries, one of which is set to be transferred by Germany, with 8 launches in each, is in the talks. According to Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President, the Patriot air defence system will be on combat duty in Ukraine as soon as in mid-spring this year.

Due to their scarcity, the American SAMs cannot resolve all the problems. However, the delivery of such complex weapons attests to trust that Ukraine has earned, which gave hope for the transfer of more batteries in the future.

Meanwhile, the winter campaign to destroy Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with missiles and drones, which was the calling card of Russian military commander Surovikin, seemed to have failed. This is evidenced by the personnel decisions regarding this “General Armageddon.”

The US Department of Defense spokesman, Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, quoted by CNN , said that the demotion of General Sergei Surovikin and his replacement by Valery Gerasimov shows "some of the systemic problems that the Russian military has faced since the beginning of this invasion."

"We've talked about some of these things in terms of logistics, command and control issues, supply issues, morale and, to a large extent, the big failure to achieve the strategic objectives that they've set out for themselves," Ryder said.

Starting from the beginning of September 2022, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine were faced with the facts of damage to combat and other equipment by unknown ammunition. At the same time, a few weeks earlier, information appeared that the Russian army had received Iranian "Shahed-136" UAVs and began to actively use them in the war against Ukraine. It is reported about repeated cases of damage to weapons and military equipment with characteristic signs of the use of kamikaze-type drones. Due to their small size and high speed, the devices are quite difficult to detect and shoot down. On September 13, the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the first time managed to destroy the Iranian UAV "Shahed-136" near Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region. The markings applied to them show that the Russian army uses the specified UAVs under the code "Geran-2". Eyewitnesses note that the enemy used "Shahed-136" mainly in pairs with a difference of a few seconds to hit targets. At the same time, priority was given to single objects (tanks, armored fighting vehicles, artillery systems, cars). Hitting previously scouted targets occurred with almost 100 percent probability. In addition to the FIM-92 Stinger, Ukraine received:

• Chiron MANPADS, intended to protect troops in the forward area from low-flying threats. Known in South Korea as ‘Shingung’.
• “Starstreak”, a new English MANPADS with a specific laser (and not the usual infrared) guidance system - about 100 missiles.
• “Martlet”, the latest English missile system positioned as universal; its deliveries in the form of MANPADS may mean tests in combat conditions since they can only be physically carried out in very small volumes
• MBDA “Mistral” - French-made MANPADS, an unknown quantity were delivered from France, along with about 100 missiles from Norway.
• “Strela-2 / 2M” - an outdated, but still combat-ready (of course, if there are “live” batteries for electricity and the refrigerant) Soviet system. Germany alone reported plans to transfer up to 2,700 of these from the stocks of the former GDR; in addition, deliveries from the Czech Republic were reported (160 units)
• “Igla-1” - another Soviet MANPADS; Slovakia announced plans to transfer up to 500 missiles.
• “Piorun” - a Polish-made, highly modernised, once-licensed version of the Igla has been supplied to Ukraine.

On 30 May 2023, in his daily address to the nation, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi stated " ... we continue the consolidation of partners in order to make the Ukrainian air defense system as effective as possible. Russian terror must be defeated every day and every night, in every region of our country, in the sky of every Ukrainian town and village. When any attack by Russian terrorists will end in failure for the terrorists, their defeat will become the source of our security - long-term. I spoke today with German Chancellor Scholz, in particular about air defense. He thanked for the air defense systems already provided to Ukraine, that is, for the lives of our people already saved by Germany. They also discussed the defense situation in general, our security cooperation."

People's deputy from "Servant of the People", Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, Yehor Chernev, said on the air of the telethon 22 July 2023, Ukraine has the latest air defense systems and they are of medium range. "This, of course, is not an analogue of Patriot, SAMP-T or IRIS-T. I think it's closer to HAWK or medium range systems. They are actually Ukrainian-made and Ukrainian-developed" Chernev said. The People's Deputy did not announce the name of the Ukrainian development. However, he said that the installations are "quite successfully" undergoing testing. According to Chernev, missiles for unnamed Ukrainian-made systems have already been developed.

Background

The Army Air Defense covers troops against enemy attacks from air in all kinds of combat operations, during regrouping and dislocation on terrain. The Army Air Defense is equipped by effective surface-to-air missile systems and complexes of division level and antiaircraft missile and artillery complexes of regiment level characterized by high rate of fire, vitality, maneuverability, by capability of action under all conditions of modern combat arms operations. Surface-to-air missile systems and complexes of division level are equipped by surface-to-air missile complexes Osa, Kub, Tor. Antiaircraft missile and artillery complexes of regiment level are equipped by antiaircraft missile complexes Strila-10, Tunguska, Igla, Shilka.

The state of readiness for air defense of the state is the most dangerous for the implementation of the priority tasks of the country's defense. Even with urgent priority measures to ensure proper coordination of air defense units, they are unable to deter the enemy from a possible air offensive. The level of efficiency of the anti-aircraft missile cover system does not exceed 9%.

Ukraine's exports of anti-aircraft missile systems are fulfilled only from the Defence Ministry's stocks. The average price equivalent of supplies in 2006-2008 is 80m dollars. Supply of Buk-M1 anti-aircraft systems to Georgia in 2007 has a special place, but not only due to political tensions. It was the first Buk division whose fighting capacity had been renewed thanks exclusively to the means of domestic defence enterprises. This methodology can be applied for repairing Ukrainian divisions of Buk-M1 anti-aircraft systems, as all of them have already worked out all determined pre-repair terms, but it was impossible to make arrangements for their repair in Russia in the last 10 years.

Ukraine’s Ground Forces will be equipped with new air defense systems by 2025, according to the Chief of the Ground Forces’scientific center in May 2011. These systems will include the Poltava surface-to-air missile system, the Bars man-portable air-defense systems, the modernized Osa-AKM surface-to-air missile system, and the Colibri man-portable air-defense systems. State defense industry conglomerate UkrOboronProm presented modernized Buk-M1 (SA-11) and S-300P (SA-10) air defense systems to the leadership of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in late 2011. The demonstration included live fire under simulated battle conditions during the exercise Adequate Response-2011.