CNN: Ukraine has recognized the use of air defense near the site of the missile crash in Poland Ukraine informed NATO allies about the deployment of an air defense system on November 15 near the border with Poland, where two people were killed when a rocket fell on the same day, CNN writes.
The Polish president admitted that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile. Military observer of the Newspaper.Ru" tells where the projectile came from and why its fall led to human casualties.
Polish President Anzej Duda said that there is nothing to indicate that the fall of the rocket in the village of Przevodow was an attack on the country. The politician noted that he had no evidence that the fallen missile was fired by the Russian military, and acknowledged the high probability that it belonged to the air Defense of Ukraine. He described the incident itself as an "accident."
"Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 missile. At the moment we have no evidence that it was a missile fired by the Russian side. Many things indicate that it was an air defense missile, which, unfortunately, fell on the territory of Poland," the president said.
As CNN reported, citing a US official, the Ukrainian military notified the State Department and other Western allies that they had activated their air defense system near the border with Poland. However, it is unclear whether the Ukrainian air defense missile really fell in Przevodow, the TV channel said.
The 540th anti-aircraft Missile Regiment of the Ukrainian Air Force has been deployed in the Lviv region to cover the city. The headquarters and command post of the regiment are located in the town of Kamenka-Bugskaya. Previously, this regiment had two groups of anti-aircraft missile divisions - S-200 air defense systems (two divisions) and S-300PT air defense systems (three divisions).
Shortly after the collapse of the USSR, the group of S-200 anti-aircraft missile divisions was disbanded, and only the S-300 group remained in the combat composition of the regiment. Then the Ukrainians dismantled one of the divisions of this group for spare parts to maintain the remaining two units in a combat-ready state.
Thus, after all these reforms, only two S-300 divisions remained in the 540th Anti-aircraft Missile Regiment. In January 2022, the regiment in this composition was again put on combat duty to protect the airspace of Ukraine.
There was a version that anti-aircraft guided missiles of type 5B55 for this regiment were manufactured at the Moscow Radio Engineering Plant (MRTZ) "Avangard" (or at the "Northern Plant" of Leningrad). Indeed, these companies have manufactured a significant number of missiles for the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system.
But it was precisely the 540th regiment that received its anti-aircraft guided missiles of the 5B55 type from the factory in Vishnev near Kiev. The plant in Vishnevoye functioned back in the 2000s. In order for Ukrspetsexport not to supply these missiles abroad for Russian S-300PMU air defense systems at dumping prices, Russia eliminated the possibility of combat use of Ukrainian 5B55 missiles in the updated version of the S-300PMU2 air defense system. Thus, to find any Russian trace in this story is a hopeless occupation.
On the evening of November 15, the situation for the 540th Regiment could develop as follows. The regiment allegedly conducted combat operations and carried out live firing at aerial targets. It is quite possible that one of the divisions (or both with a concentration of fire) fired at aerial objects on catch-up courses with an azimuth of 240-300 degrees (i.e. in a westerly direction).
It is possible that a miss occurred along one of the guidance channels (this is far from uncommon in a complex and fleeting anti-aircraft battle), and a queue of two 5B55R type anti-aircraft guided missiles ended up in Polish airspace (given the deployment of the 540th regiment near the state border).
At the same time, a Polish grain dryer and a tractor were damaged, two Polish citizens were killed.
When the warhead of the missile defense system is detonated, the complete atomic decay of the missile does not occur. There remain quite significant fragments of the product, which easily determine the side numbers of the rocket itself (series, batch, number, year of manufacture, manufacturer) and the numbers of its units.
Probably, all the technological inscriptions on the discovered missile fragments were made in Ukrainian. After all, anti-aircraft guided missiles were manufactured for the 540th regiment at the factory in Vishnevoye near Kiev already in the years of independence of Ukraine.
The main question is what the military-political consequences of the incident in the village of Przevodow may be. There is no doubt that Poland and other Eastern European NATO countries will call for a sharp increase in military spending and an increase in the combat capabilities of national air defense systems.
The immediate consequences of the incident in Przevodów will be an increase in the supply of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine within the framework of the seventh meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine (Ramstein-7), which began on November 16 in Washington.
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
