Ex-Colonel of the General Staff Khodarenok explained why Western air defense and missile defense systems will not help Ukraine
The United States intends to supply Ukraine with "advanced strategic air defense and missile defense systems." This was reported by CNN. What are the difficulties of creating an effective air and missile defense system in Ukraine - in the author's material of the military observer "Gazeta.Ru" by Mikhail Khodarenok.
To begin with, we note that in the CNN report on the transfer of air defense and missile defense systems to Ukraine, accents are not quite correctly placed and terminological confusion is allowed.
We emphasize right away: it is the transfer of strategic missile defense complexes such as the ground-based missile defense system on the GMD (Ground-based Midcourse Defense), the Aegis Ashore coastal missile defense system and the mobile ground-based system for high-altitude interception of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missiles to Ukraine, even in the historically foreseeable period, is not in progress. in principle. Such a problem is not raised and is not discussed.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine can be supplied with medium- and long-range anti-aircraft missile systems and complexes with the potential of non-strategic missile defense, that is, having the ability to hit ballistic missiles of operational-tactical and tactical missile systems. Thus, in fact, missile defense for Ukraine will be narrowed down to this framework.
There have been no modern and promising anti-aircraft missile systems for equipping the air defense forces of Ukraine since 1991, and there are practically no own competencies in the development and production of such weapons today.
However, let's try to imagine what the process of obtaining at least one Western-made regimental kit by the Ukrainian military will look like.
To begin with, we need to find at least 500-700 servicemen of the anti-aircraft missile defense forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (this is the approximate number of personnel of the anti-aircraft missile regiment). Then send them for retraining to one of the NATO countries.
After mastering the theoretical course, passing the relevant tests, the Ukrainian military will have to receive weapons and military equipment and perform initial firing. And only after that, the anti-aircraft missile regiment can either be sent to the combat area, or deployed to cover particularly important military facilities or an administrative and political center.
If you do all this, figuratively speaking, "running" and engage in combat training for 12-14 hours a day, then the process will take at least several months. And this, we note, we are talking about only one shelf. And the Ukrainian air defense forces need dozens of such anti-aircraft missile regiments or brigades.
But that's not all the problems. The fact is that all other weapons and automation systems of all levels of the air defense forces of Ukraine are either still Soviet-made, or are based on Soviet principles of building radar reconnaissance, missile and fighter aviation cover.
Obtaining Western-made anti-aircraft systems alone - even with very high tactical and technical characteristics - in general, it is impossible to solve the problem of effective cover of troops and facilities.
The complexes of the United States and NATO countries do not fit into the Soviet air defense system.
Therefore, it is necessary to supply Kiev with weapons and military equipment of air defense to the collective West together with radar complexes, automation means (from the company level to the level of connection / association), electronic warfare complexes. The implementation of this program - in the event that such a political decision is made, and this is not obvious - will take several years and will cost the NATO countries enormous funds.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
