What the Ukrainians have learned - and global experts are following - is that the volume of drones and missiles being shot cannot be dealt with by just one system, a fact that Ukraine's growing success in taking down Russian missiles and drones, has emphasized. JL
Alistair Macdonald and Ievgenia Sivorka report in the Wall Street Journal:
Ukraine has blunted missiles and drone strikes while stopping Russia’s air force from gaining free rein in Ukrainian skies. Ukraine is marshaling the layers of its air defense, a mix of Soviet-era systems and high-tech Western equipment capable of taking out Russia’s best missiles. Ukraine’s defense against Russian missiles and drones ranges from sophisticated, multimillion-dollar U.S. Patriot systems to a mother of two with a 40-year-old assault rifle. Most of Ukraine’s systems have middle distance ranges of 25 miles, including U.S. Hawks, Nasams, and Germany’s Iris-T. It’s shorter-distance air defenses include 50 Gepards, the U.S. Stinger and Britain’s Starstreak.This winter, Ukraine’s defense against Russian missiles and drones ranges from sophisticated, multimillion-dollar U.S. Patriot systems to Svitlana Ruda, a mother of two with a 40-year-old assault rifle.
Russia has started a widely anticipated bombardment of Ukrainian infrastructure, repeating a campaign last winter that led to mass blackouts and leveled apartment blocks.
Ukraine is now marshaling the various layers of its air defense, a mix of Soviet-era systems and high-tech Western equipment capable of taking out Russia’s best missiles, alongside groups of volunteers like Ruda who train their sights on the long-range drones that Moscow sends in their dozens.
Over the past week, Russia has launched scores of missiles and long-range drones that have hit civilian areas in some of Ukraine’s largest cities. Ukraine has said rocket, missile and drone attacks have damaged infrastructure and residential buildings, killing civilians.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has told Western leaders that his country needs missile-defense systems more than other weapons. But the U.S. and its allies don’t have large inventories of these systems, which can take years to be manufactured.
The war in Ukraine is a test bed for air-defense systems, which have grown in prominence more broadly as drones widen the airborne threat, and more countries—and militant groups—build up their arsenals of missiles and rockets. Their increased use is also boosting orders for the arms companies that make the systems.
“Nobody said that air defense would win a conflict, but its absence will lose one,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
Air defense has been crucial for Ukraine. It has blunted missiles and drone strikes while stopping Russia’s air force from gaining free rein in Ukrainian skies, preventing it from targeting cities and the military at will.
On Friday, Ukraine’s air force said three Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers were downed in the south of the country, in one of its most successful operations against Russian air power since the start of the war.
Last winter, Russia launched around 1,000 missiles and 1,000 long-range drones at cities and infrastructure, according to Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force. Ukraine shot down around 70% to 75%, he said.
Russia continues to produce missiles despite predictions they would run out. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency estimates that Russia can each month produce about 100 of two different types of cruise missiles, four ultrafast hypersonic ballistic missiles and five ballistic missiles.
Air Defense
Ukraine operates a variety of Western equipment to counter aerial threats.
Select air-defense systems and their ranges
Long range:
Patriot (5 sent)
SAMP/ T (1)
Approximate distance: 60 miles
Medium range:
Nasams (20 sent by the U.S., Lithuania and Norway)
Iris-T (5)
25 miles
Short range:
Stinger (2000 sent by the U.S.)
3 miles
Sources: Congressional Research Service (Nasams); Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (stinger); staff reports
British military intelligence has said it thinks that Russia has been saving its best air-launched cruise missiles for several months to build up a “substantial stock” for a winter campaign.
Aside from simply inflicting damage, Ukrainian and Western officials say that Moscow’s winter offensive is also likely aimed at getting Kyiv to use up its stock of air-defense missiles, giving the Russian Air Force more freedom to strike ground forces.
Russia, which has previously said it doesn’t target civilians, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Even before the war, Ukraine had comparatively well-stocked missile defenses, with 403 land-based systems, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank. Donations from other countries have now taken that figure to around 564, IISS estimates. That compares with just over 1,600 for the rest of Europe combined.
Among Ukraine’s most sophisticated air-defense systems are five long-range Patriot batteries, made by RTX, sent by the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands. Kyiv also has a SAMP/T system, made by European missile specialist MBDA, that was sent by France. Both those Western systems are capable of hitting targets about 60 miles away.
These long-range systems are what Ukraine needs most, according to Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. Air Force general, who added that the West hasn’t given enough.
“Look at how big Ukraine is and how much they have to defend,” he said.
Most of Ukraine’s Western air-defense systems have middle distance ranges of up to around 25 miles. Those include a number of U.S. Hawk systems, at least 20 Nasams, sent by the U.S., Lithuania and Norway, and at least five of Germany’s Iris-T.
Ukraine’s shorter-distance air defenses include at least 50 Gepards, a tracked radar-operated cannon, and missiles such as the U.S. Stinger and Britain’s Starstreak.
Kyiv also uses Soviet-era long and middle-range systems. While these have been broadly successful, their stock of missiles has been depleted, according to IISS. That has prompted Ukraine and the U.S. to convert some old Soviet launchers to fire Western missiles.
Such an array of different systems could make Ukraine’s air defenses less effective, analysts say. Militaries typically integrate their air defenses.
“You need integrated fire control, so something that controls everything, that says you shoot, you don’t shoot,” said Karako, the Missile Defense Project director.
Many Western systems have been shown to be effective, allowing their manufacturers to trumpet their battlefield successes and win orders.
In September, Germany’s Diehl Defence said that its Iris-T system shot down every one of the 110 mainly cruise missiles that it targeted. Meanwhile, the Patriot has downed several of Russia’s hypersonic missiles, which Moscow has previously said were impossible to defend against.
While not equipped with weapons as sophisticated as pricey, long-range Western missiles, units such as 49-year-old Ruda’s—armed with large-caliber machine guns and assault rifles—also play an important role in countering the aerial threat from a shorter range.
The homegrown teams man machine-gun emplacements on tall buildings and patrol the edges of cities with weapons mounted on pickup trucks, typically targeting drones.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian air defenses destroyed 18 drones in one night. Most of these were taken down by mobile units, Zelensky said in a Telegram post.
On a recent evening outside of Kyiv, Ruda’s unit—named Mriya, Ukrainian for dream—watched the sky for Shaheds, a type of Iranian drone used by Russia that slams into its target.
Dressed in bulletproof vests and helmets the team works 24-hour shifts, within which members are given time to rest. The team uses night scopes, thermal imagers and tablets that relay a drone’s journey. Still, in one indication of how rudimentary Ukraine’s defense can be in this otherwise high-tech aerial battle, spotlights track the team’s airborne prey—evocative of World War II-era bombing raids.
The unit fires a range of dated weapons, including a 1933-made copy of a British Maxim gun.
Ukraine was originally caught off guard by the profusion of Shahed drones, and as air defenses improved, Russia has adapted its tactics.
“Shahed used to fly in a straight line and now they change direction and come from different sides,” said Serhiy Sas, 67, a former judge who helped put the Mriya unit together early in the war.
Russia has also started painting the drones black to make them harder to spot and covering them in carbon that can deflect radar waves, said Sas and Ihnat, the Air Force spokesman.
In footage of a recent downing by the Mriya unit, a spotlight illuminates the undercarriage of a Shahed before the sky is lit up with tracer fire from several guns. The drone then explodes and cheers can be heard.
Ruda’s Kalashnikov assault rifle was one of the guns that was firing at that drone. But as the debris began to fall she had to take cover. When that threat passed there was little time for celebration.
“The excitement is for a few seconds, because you know there are more coming and you have to be alert,” Ruda said.
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