Ukraine wants more air defence missiles, their air force says, with a warning that if they lose control of the skies the country will be pounded into the ground by the Russians “just like they did in Syria”.
Building on the alleged revelations in the Pentagon Papers leak of the past fortnight that Ukraine was weeks away from running out of air defence missiles, a senior spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force has warned the “situation is very dangerous” and warned the air defence system failing would leave the nation’s armies, cities, and nuclear plants open to Russian air strikes.
Ukrainian air defences have performed well so far, but is predominantly made up of ex-Soviet stock launch systems and missiles, and the only place new missiles can be made is Russia. While some stocks exist in other European nations, and some of those have even been delivered to Ukraine, the Russian air defence systems are essentially finite.
Western air defence systems are being supplied to Ukraine but in small numbers. The equipment involved is expensive and sophisticated, with air defence generally at the bleeding-edge of technological progress: while the United States is supplying NASAM launchers, it doesn’t have enough spare to provide them from stock, and has ordered new ones to be made. According to a late-2022 report, this process could take “at least a year”.
Yet according to a February slide from the Pentagon Papers — the exact veracity of which is disputed, but is at least outwardly treated seriously by the Washington establishment — at present rate of usage, Ukraine is due to run out of one type of missiles by April 2nd, now just two weeks away. The second main component of their air defence would be exhausted by mid-May.
Continuing his campaign of pleading with Western nations to provide more equipment sooner, Ukrainian Air Force Colonel Yuri Ihnat told London’s The Times that: “The situation is very dangerous indeed… If we lose the battle for our skies the consequences will be critical. The Russians will smash every city just like they did in Syria. Our nuclear power stations will be vulnerable too. And we will struggle to protect our frontline troops.”
Russia is accused of indiscriminately bombing civilian areas and levelling whole areas in Syria in the course of Putin’s direct involvement in the conflict which dates back to 2015. The senior military officer who manged Russia’s war in Syria was re-assigned to lead the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Colonel Ihnat also claimed Russia was using a new kind of guided bomb, which could be dropped from beyond the range of Ukraine’s air defence and then gride down onto its target, not unlike American-made weapons systems already given to the Ukrainians. This, the Air Force spokesman said, was beyond interception by the country’s present anti-air weapons and underlined the need for the West to send new equipment. He said, per The Times: “They have gone from dropping a few a day to around two dozen every day along our entire line of contact… They are dropped from Su-35 and Su-34 jets outside the range of our air defence system, then travel 40 miles to their target.
“This is a serious threat and at the moment we have no equipment to respond. The only way is with systems like the Patriot [or] modern fighter jets like the F-16. That is why we are begging our allies to give us them now.”
The comments echo others Ihnat made weeks ago, when he warned in a plea for more weapons to be sent to Ukraine: “If we lose the battle for the skies, the consequences for Ukraine will be very serious… This kind of aircraft would solve many of our issues in protecting the airspace, and it is available in sufficient numbers to make a difference”.
Colonel Ihnat said in separate comments at the weekend that Patriot surface-to-air-missiles are likely to be deployed to Ukraine after Orthodox Easter. According to the Ukrainian government, 65 soldiers have so far completed training on the weapons system.