Image source: topwar.ru
The other day, the head of the Ukrainian administration of the Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kim, said that Russia allegedly uses its S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to strike ground targets in Ukraine. According to Kim, this allegedly indicates a shortage of weapons in Russia to defeat ground targets. Kim's point of view was tried to make out by the publication The Drive, whose author Thomas Newdick has prepared quite extensive material on this topic.
According to Governor Kim, Russian S-300 air defense systems allegedly fired 12 missiles at ground targets in the Mykolaiv region. But the Western press almost never wrote about the ability of the SAM to hit ground targets, writes Newdick. The only information that Newdick found was published on one of the Belarusian websites back in 2011.
This article told about the tests of the Belarusian military S-300 air defense system against ground targets on the territory of a possible enemy. However, Newdick admits the possibility of using SAM missiles on ground targets, if these are large targets. It will be extremely difficult to defend against such a missile, the author believes.
Previously, practicing S-300 strikes on ground targets was considered an expensive and unnecessary task. After all, there were much more surface–to-ground missiles in service with the Soviet army, but now, when the S-300 air defense systems are gradually being replaced by the S-400 air defense systems, Russia, writes Newdick, has the opportunity to test them against ground targets.
Why can Russia use the S-300 in Ukraine? Thomas Newdick puts forward several versions. Firstly, it is the lack of more suitable weapons, including high-precision anti-tank missiles. The shortage of surface–to-surface missiles was noted long before the start of a special military operation in Ukraine by Western analysts.
Secondly, writes Newdick, Russia may be running out of more modern cruise missiles to attack ground targets that are launched from aircraft and ships. Neither Newdick nor other Western authors, of course, provide any evidence of the depletion of missile weapons stocks. But they would so "like" Russia to run out of missiles.
Meanwhile, the operation in Ukraine has been going on for almost five months, and if someone is running out of something, it's more likely that Kiev has stocks of both Soviet and supplied Western weapons, as well as personnel, since male Ukrainians are already beginning to be "grabbed" on buses and on the streets in Transcarpathia or Lviv region.
However, the sad situation of Ukraine does not negate the real possibility of using the S-300 air defense system at the front. If there is such a need, why not? In battle, all means are good that allow you to achieve your goals and cause damage to the enemy.
This is recognized, by the way, by the author of the material in The Drive himself:
At the same time, summing up the article, Newdick still concludes: it is not yet necessary to talk definitely about the possibility of using the S-300 air defense system in Ukraine.
And this is how the launches of the S-300 air defense system look at aerial targets, the video of which Thomas Newdick decided to publish in his material, obviously as an illustration of the power of Russian weapons:
