How many Ukrainian S-300s have been obliterated by Russian missile strikes since February 2022 is still a mystery. Kiev has not commented on the technical setbacks.
The Soviet Union created the S-300 air defence system, which Moscow initially deployed in the late 1970s. Up until the conclusion of the Cold War in 1991, it was utilised throughout Eastern Europe.
Status of Ukraine’s S-300
Just before Russia started its military operation in Ukraine on February 24 of this year, Ukraine alone is said to have had more than 250 S-300 systems, according to calculations by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
The S-300 from the NATO stockpile that was provided to Ukraine as part of military assistance since the start of the conflict is not taken into account in the aforementioned calculation. The US requested that NATO members in Eastern Europe hand over additional S-300s to Kiev in the spring of this year.
Slovakia, a NATO member since 2004, provided Ukraine with a complex of four S-300 mobile missile launchers and related radars in April in exchange for Germany providing Slovakia with the Patriot air defence system.
Ukrainian military can easily incorporate the S-300 system, according to the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The Ukrainian military has been utilising the S-300 for a long time.
However, CSIS said in an examination of Western options that it would be challenging to obtain additional equipment to support Ukraine’s further upgrade of the air defence system.
The IRIS-T system, which was manufactured in Germany, is now in service in Ukraine and is arguably the most advanced mobile land-based air defence system against missile attacks. However, many regions of Ukraine still use the outdated S-300 for air defence.
The number of Ukrainian S-300s destroyed by Russian missile strikes since February 2022 is yet unknown. Concerning the technological setbacks, Kiev has been mute.
Ranging from 75 to 195 kilometres, the range of land-based S-300 systems varies.
S-300 missile from Ukraine fired at Poland
The S-300 was an outdated missile, according to the Polish government, and it crashed on November 15 in the village of Przewodow. A Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, not a Russian one, had landed in this village near the Polish-Ukrainian border, according to Petr Müller, the Polish government’s spokesman, on November 18.
Documents gathered by our agencies and our allies demonstrate that the incident was caused by Ukraine’s defensive measures against Russian attacks, according to Müller.
The S-300 air defence system of the Ukrainian Air Force was identified in a statement released by the Russian Defense Ministry as being comprised of the debris seen in the images obtained in Poland.
Western Ukraine had previously been bombarded numerous times before being extensively shelled on November 15. Both the electricity infrastructure and the Ukrainian military installation Yavoriv were targeted.
Yavoriv, in the westernmost region of the Soviet Union, was a military base until the end of the Cold War. It is situated about 90 km south of the missile crash site in Przewodow. It is unclear if that is where the missile originated from or if it came from somewhere else in western Ukraine.
