President Zelensky praised the US and German missiles supplied to Ukraine “bringing remarkable results, shooting down many Russian missiles and UAVs in the past week”. However, Russian expert Yury Knutov has a different view.
According to Sputnik, the West continues to provide Ukraine with new weapons, but are these weapons effective enough to prevail on the battlefield?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently praised the strength of the American and German air defense systems – Patriot and IRIS-T respectively – that had been previously supplied to Kyiv as part of Western military support . .
Zelensky praised these systems as being “highly effective” and “have yielded significant results” when they shot down 65 missiles of various types and 178 attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of Russia in the past week. .
Russian expert “pours cold water on”
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry earlier this month released a video of the Lancet-3 suicide drone destroying Ukraine’s IRIS-T air defense missile system. The incident was also reported by a US military news agency.
Previously, the Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile successfully destroyed five launchers of Ukraine’s Patriot missile defense system in May.
An informed source cited by Sputnik told Sputnik that Ukraine’s Patriot system was “suddenly attacked by a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet carrying Kinzhal missiles” and that “Ukrainian missile crews could do nothing to protect it” this air defense system”.
Military historian and political commentator Yury Knutov said that in order to understand the true effectiveness of the aforementioned Ukrainian air defense systems, it should first be noted that Russia carried out combined missile attacks on Kyiv’s military infrastructure.
Knutov explained, when conducting such attacks, Russia first uses simple and cheap missiles, along with UAVs, as bait to lure Patriot and IRIS-T complexes of Ukrainian air defenses. fired, leading to a rapid depletion of the number of missiles on the launcher.
Specifically, we (Russian military) first launched the Kh-55, a decommissioned and planned missile that was to be phased out, provoking Ukraine to use the missiles (Patriot or IRIS), he said. -T) to intercept the Kh-55″.
Russia also uses UAVs in this way, he added, adding that, first of all, “relatively cheap Russian drones” are launched to deceive, causing Ukrainian systems to fire to intercept these vehicles.
After Ukraine’s air defense systems ran out of missiles and revealed their positions, Russia delivered a decisive blow by “using Kalibr, X-555, and X-101 cruise missiles, directly hitting targets Ukraine”, expert Knutov noted.
He stressed that neither US-made nor German-made air defense systems are capable of dealing with Russia’s Iskander short-range ballistic missiles.
When asked about the effectiveness of Patriot and IRIS-T, the Russian expert noted that “if we calculate the total number of targets shot down by these air defense systems, it seems that the efficiency is quite high, but in fact it is. that’s not it”.
“The cheap drones and missiles that were shot down were all in the foreseeable future because they were designed as decoys, the important thing is that the missiles that were actually used to attack NATO air defenses did their job. their defenses turned out to be extremely low,” he emphasized.
Does Russia have another way to disable Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles?
Knutov explained that Russia can disable Patriot and IRIS-T with Kh-31 anti-radar missiles, which are capable of destroying the system’s circular sight radar and fire control radars. Ukrainian air defense and thus neutralize their main component.
This allows the Russian military to disable Patriot or IRIS-T systems for a long time until they are repaired or new systems are deployed.
Knutov added that it is impossible not to mention the Iskander-M ballistic missile, capable of breaking through any Ukrainian air defense shield, and the hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missile, which destroyed the city. Patriot missile attack.
“Both Iskander-M and Kinzhal are highly effective against any Western missile shield, they can destroy enemy air defenses both before and during deployment, this mission is also possible. carried out by Kalibr cruise missiles or Geran suicide drones,” concluded expert Knutov.
