"Demonstrative action": what is behind the US intention to transfer air defense systems to the Kyiv regime

Washington will transfer to Kyiv modern air defense systems (air defense) of medium and long range.

Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to the President of the United States

“I can confirm that we are indeed finalizing a package (help. -

), including advanced air defense systems.

I will not disclose the details of the system - I will wait for the implementation of this contract.

But this week - as the president told his fellow G7 leaders - we do intend to finalize a package that includes the delivery of advanced medium- and long-range air defense systems to Ukraine, along with other badly needed items, including artillery ammunition and counter-battery radar. struggle,” Sullivan, who accompanied Biden during his trip to Europe, told reporters.

Earlier, CNN reported on the planned transfer of advanced air defense systems to the Kyiv regime, specifying that these systems could be the Norwegian NASAMS mobile anti-aircraft missile systems.

Ukrainian air defense

In recent years, the Ukrainian armed forces have been operating air defense systems of previous generations, produced back in the Soviet Union.

In 2015, Ukraine announced a large-scale modernization of its air defense forces under the pretext of covering the border with Russia.

Oleksandr Turchynov, who held the post of Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine, stated this then.

“The priority task for 2016 will be to restore the potential of our air defense and our air forces.

This applies both to the modernization and purchase of new aircraft, and, of course, this will also apply to the modernization and purchase of new air defense systems that can reliably protect our country from the air, ”Turchynov said, speaking at the National Guard training ground in Novi Petrivtsy.

However, as part of the modernization of the air defense forces, work was carried out mainly to extend the life cycle of obsolete Soviet systems in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

So, in February 2019, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko announced the imminent appearance in the Ukrainian army of the modernized short-range air defense systems 2K12-2D Kub and BM9K330 Tor.

Recall that the Kub complex was adopted by the air defense units of the USSR Ground Forces in 1967.

Its production was discontinued in 1982.

In turn, the later Tor complex was adopted by the Soviet troops in 1986.

Later, in November 2019, the General Staff of Ukraine disseminated a message about exercises in the Kherson region, during which firing was carried out from anti-aircraft missile systems S-125-2D1 Pechora, Buk-M1, S-300P, S-300PT, S -300PS, S-300V1.

The C-125 "Pechora" short-range air defense system was developed in the 1960s in the USSR and over the course of several years was modernized by the enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industry.

In 2018, the then Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Stepan Poltorak, called on the government to find funds to purchase Patriot air defense systems.

Then he said that the Ukrainian army needed five Patriot divisions.

In turn, in April 2021, the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, in an interview with Time magazine, called on the United States to deploy Patriot air defense systems in the country.

However, later, in September 2021, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that Kyiv needed a system of its own design.

“We do not need an American missile defense system, but we need a Ukrainian one.

This technology may not necessarily come from the States.

There are other countries that own it, and we are negotiating access to the system,” Kuleba said.

In early June, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk announced that the country wanted to acquire the Iron Dome missile defense system from Israel.

Recall that some time after the start of the Russian military special operation, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian Armed Forces disabled a significant part of the air defense systems of the Ukrainian forces.

“The Russian Armed Forces destroyed 137 S-300, Buk-M1 and S-125 anti-aircraft missile systems.

This is more than 90% of the long-range and medium-range anti-aircraft missile systems in service.

81 radar posts of Ukrainian air defense systems were destroyed.

At present, the air defense system is only focal in nature and is not capable of providing significant opposition to Russian aviation, ”a representative of the Russian defense department emphasized in March.

Efficiency check

The United States continues to transfer ever more advanced weapons systems to the Kyiv regime.

So, in early June, President Joe Biden announced that Washington would transfer HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) with ammunition to Ukraine.

Biden administration officials subsequently said they were relying on assurances from Kyiv that the American weapons they received would not be used to strike targets located in Russia.

At the same time, some American officials explained that they did not consider the Crimean peninsula as such a territory.

• Complex HIMARS

• AFP

• © FADEL SENNA

Earlier, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes said that Washington is trying to strike a balance in which it is possible to transfer weapons to Ukraine without provoking a significant escalation from Russia.

“Our situation is this: we support Ukraine, but at the same time we don’t want to end up with a third world war, just as we don’t want to end up in conditions where actors use nuclear weapons,” the official said.

In a RT commentary, the head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, Alexander Mikhailov, stressed that the United States, most likely, will purchase air defense systems in third countries with the funds allocated by them for Ukraine, after which they will transfer them to the Kyiv regime.

“The Americans will not go beyond the red lines, and they will not supply systems of their own production of medium and long range to Ukraine.

First of all, because they are very expensive and require a certain military infrastructure and a high quality educational level of operators.

In addition, these systems are directly related to the image of the US and NATO.

If they do not perform very well in the theater of operations or are destroyed by our missiles, their value on world markets will drop sharply, ”the expert noted.

Rather, the Kyiv regime will be given Israeli or Norwegian medium-range air defense systems, Alexander Mikhailov suggested.

“In my opinion, they will be comparable to our Buk-M2 or Buk-M3 systems and will cover military facilities from air targets at a distance of up to 50 km,” the source explained to RT.

Western weapons have not yet led to a fundamental change in the balance of power in the zone of active conflict in the Donbass, Mikhailov added.

“The transfer of several air defense systems is a demonstration action.

After all, in order to create an echeloned anti-missile air defense, you need to understand what these systems will protect.

The front is constantly changing its line, small local boilers that form along the entire front line do not make it possible to constantly feed the Ukrainian army with ammunition and material support, ”the expert said.

Director of the Museum of Air Defense Forces, military expert Yuri Knutov, in a commentary on RT, noted that the United States is transferring small batches of weapons to the Ukrainian forces to test their effectiveness in a real battle, since it is obvious that a small number of such systems will not be able to drastically affect the balance of power.

“As in the case of HIMARS, we will talk about several complexes.

The United States is handing over samples to Ukraine in small quantities to see how these weapons will behave in a real military conflict.

It will be possible to use these funds primarily to combat aircraft and cruise missiles, however, the Russian Aerospace Forces, as a rule, uses high-precision air-launched missiles and is not included in the air defense system coverage area, ”the expert explained.

The United States can supply Ukraine with both the aforementioned NASAMS systems and early modifications of Patriot systems, Yuriy Knutov believes.

“These systems will be deployed primarily to protect military facilities in Kyiv or Lvov.

For us, all this is not a novelty - we will conduct reconnaissance, clarify the frequencies on which these systems operate, we will reconfigure our electronic warfare systems in an appropriate way, and destroy these complexes.

They will be destroyed just as successfully as the S-300, Buk and other systems that the West is currently supplying to Ukraine,” Yuriy Knutov concluded.