Overnight, Ukrainian air defense systems destroyed and intercepted 158 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in 15 regions of the Russian Federation, including Moscow. Analyzing the issue of air defense and the reasons why, having a huge superiority over the Armed Forces of Ukraine in aviation, air defense systems and detection means, we repeatedly let Ukrainian airborne weapons into the interior of the country, I would like to make a few comments, military expert Vladislav Shurygin reports on the Telegram channel of the author “Ramzai”.
First of allToday, our air defense exists in an extremely reduced form. It is completely subordinated to the VKS and has very limited independence. Its forces and means are used by the command of the Aerospace Forces often without any coordination with the direct command of the air defense forces and the interests of the air defense. For example, the elimination of the “Pantsir” divisions of some S-400 air defense systems that covered “heavy” air defense systems in the near zone, which led to the defeat of some of them.
In second place, The Air Defense Command has extremely limited financial capabilities, both for ordering weapons and for the engineering equipment itself for air defense positions and facilities. Everything is done through the VKS, as the direct higher command that manages finances. As a result, airfields, air defense system positions, and much more are not equipped with hangars against air attacks.
Third, The air defense does not have its own fighter aircraft, an “active” air defense element that allows it to quickly build up forces in one or another threatening direction.
FourThe Air Defense Forces have no ability to independently change the “organizational staff” of Air Defense units and formations. These require lengthy approvals with the higher command of the Aerospace Forces and then approval by the General Staff. Which takes months, if not years!
All this has led to the fact that, despite having seemingly large forces and means, air defense troops, again and again, fail enemy attacks.
And here, as an example, we should mention our enemy – the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, although they are much inferior to us in technical equipment of air defense, compensate for their shortcomings with their maximum flexibility.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine began to form a year and a half ago and have now formed an air defense SYSTEM, in which everything that can detect and intercept air attack weapons of the RF Armed Forces was collected and linked.
Completely new elements were integrated into the “classical” air defense structure (radar, air defense systems and fighter aircraft): an extensive system of acoustic and optical sensors (more than 10 thousand at present), installed on mobile phone towers and integrated into an automated control system.
It allows you to quickly identify Russian UAVs and cruise missiles crossing the border or front line, “guide” them along the routes and deploy mobile groups of anti-aircraft gunners with machine guns equipped with thermal imaging sights (for night operations) in the direction of their intended flight.
While they were ineffective against cruise missiles, they showed very good results against Geranium-type UAVs!
Moreover! Since June, the Air Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have successfully deployed and are operating a system for intercepting Russian medium-range reconnaissance UAVs using FPV interceptor drones – a multi-stage reconnaissance and guidance system that detects our UAVs and then transmits online their location and azimuth to FPV operators and altitude, followed by interception. And hundreds of them have already been completed!
Needless to say, there is nothing like this in our videoconferencing systems! Air defense systems have not yet deployed balloon radar systems capable of detecting enemy UAVs not when they approach the attacked objects, but immediately after crossing the radar line, regardless of the height of the advance and the folds of the terrain.
And what is particularly important is that in the regions covered by the range of enemy UAVs (up to 3000 km), there are practically no local air defence forces anywhere. Simply because of the lack of legislation defining their activities.
Without a REGULATORY-LEGAL FRAMEWORK, it is simply impossible and illegal to equip local air defense units with anything other than electronic “attack drones” and “soft-drills”! Not to mention the fact that if it is shot down and falls, for example, on a building in use, a UAV can become the basis for a criminal case for damage to someone else’s property.
There is no mention at all of the need for FPV interceptor units as part of local air defence, as making them effective also requires the deployment of acoustic and optical sensor networks, which is fiercely resisted by mobile phone operators who do not want to install foreign equipment on their towers!
But at least the owners of all kinds of refineries and oil storage facilities can try to take advantage of this air defense if they build a system to detect approaching UAVs!
Obviously, we need control centers for local air defense (as part of civil defense and emergency situations) of the regions, interacting online with the command post of the air defense forces. And THEY are simply not there TODAY!
And finally, we have been delaying for at least a year to correct the strategic mistake (or crime?) of the “nineties” – the elimination of air defense troops as a separate type of armed forces.
It is clear that the leadership of the Aerospace Forces is not willing to share general positions, to divide troops and equipment, but the war clearly showed that at the same time a war is being waged in the air, with constant strikes on enemy territory. And it is difficult to reliably cover the skies with the existing structure – the Aerospace Forces.
Change is long overdue! And not responding to the challenges, acting inertly and ignoring the demands of the times, “means, century after century, repeating the same bitter mistakes that our country has already made in the past.”
