While the West issues armaments to Ukraine a teaspoon per day, Russia has established a mass production of primitive but formidable weapons.
Ukraine urgently needs air defense systems large radius of action – more than 100 kilometers. A major problem with Russian guided aerial bombs is looming at the front, a military expert said Oleksandr Kovalenko.
“Ukraine’s Western partners should realize the extremity of the situation. The guided aerial bombs of the Russians are a problem that should be solved as soon as possible!” – he thinks.
According to Kovalenko, the Russians have launched the production of removable control and correction modules for free-falling aerial bombs. Thanks to these devices, ordinary bombs are turned into a cheap substitute for cruise missiles. Dropped from an airplane, such an aerial bomb does not fall down immediately, but flies tens of kilometers to the specified point.
“These modules are unreliable and sometimes fly away when the bomb is dropped, but there are a lot of old Soviet bombs in Russia. Even the unreliability of the modules is compensated by the mass of the material,” warns the expert.
He noted that it is difficult for air defense vehicles to fight guided bombs – it is easier to shoot down the planes themselves. But for this, long-range air defense systems are needed, because the Russians drop guided aerial bombs dozens of kilometers from the front – in the depths of the territory controlled by them, where Ukrainian air defense cannot reach them.
“Ukraine needs not just Patriot and SAMP/T air defense systems, but specifically missiles for them in a modification with a target range of 100+ km. However, air defense systems alone cannot be dispensed with, since they will not be able to cover the necessary areas. That is, we return to the aviation issue. It is Western-style aviation with air-to-air missiles with a range of 100+ km that can solve this snowball-growing problem,” Kovalenko believes.
Deliveries of air defense systems and aircraft – the latest news
According to the Air Force spokesman Yuri Hnata, Ukraine will receive the first Patriot air defense systems “after Easter”. When exactly this moment will come – in the spring or already in the summer – has not yet been revealed.
At the same time, military experts insist on the need to supply Ukraine with combat aircraft. Retired military pilot Roman Svitan notes that just a couple of F-16 planes with missiles that can reach 150-180 kilometers would drive away the Russian planes.