Russia Has Found Ways to Bypass Ukrainian Air Defense and Kill More People. Is It Really That Bad?

The increase in the number of Patriot-like air defense systems in Ukraine is forcing Russia to change its killing tactics. Unfortunately, sometimes the enemy manages to bypass Ukrainian air defense, as it happened during the large-scale shelling of Kyiv on July 8.

Svitlana Hudkova, editor of Zaborona, together with experts, analyzed the tricks used by the Russian army, and how the Ukrainian Air Force counteracts them.

Traps for Ukrainian air defense

The Russians use many methods to detect and bypass air defense systems. They are usually used on the eve of a large-scale attack on Ukrainian cities.

“This is done with the help of inside agents, reconnaissance flights, including drones or even maneuvering missiles, as well as available satellite reconnaissance tools. Another reconnaissance option is the launch of fake targets — radar stations track them, and the enemy records their location,” military observer Denys Popovych explains in a commentary to Zaborona.

According to him, sometimes these methods are effective, sometimes not, because Ukrainian air defense systems can also change positions. The enemy understands this, too, so they have come up with ways to break through the defense during the attack.

“For example, the Russians often use X-101 missiles for attacks. Firstly, they have a lot of those. Russia gets the necessary components through third countries. Secondly, this missile flies at extremely low altitudes, which makes it difficult to track it in advance. They also began to equip a certain number of missiles with heat traps. How does it work? When an enemy missile is targeted by an air defense missile, it fires a heat trap, which is detected by an anti-aircraft missile that explodes in midair. Some missiles are equipped with communication jamming systems to make them harder to detect,” says Dmytro Zhmailo, executive director of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation.

Unfortunately, despite the gap between Western and Russian missile technologies, the latter, due to the combat experience gained and objectively greater manpower and military strength, can afford to keep up with the improvement of equipment. “And the large-scale attack on Kyiv on July 8 is an example of long-term work by the Russians because the last time we missed so many enemy targets was in 2022,” the expert believes.

Ukrainian air defense adapts to Russian attacks

Just as Russia is looking for opportunities, the Ukrainian Air Force is learning to counter the enemy’s tricks. And the military is doing its job as efficiently as possible.

“An eloquent testimony to the fact that our air defense forces are working perfectly is that despite the significant advantage of the Russians in aviation, we managed to preserve our fleet as much as possible. The systems cover airfields, and despite constant attacks on Starokostiantyniv and Myrhorod, the airfields have not been destroyed. We have started making models of airplanes and Patriot SAMs so that expensive Russian missiles would hit them instead of the real equipment. Air defense systems are also constantly maneuvering and changing positions,” Zhmailo said.

To be more effective, an air defense system needs even more anti-aircraft missiles, says Ivan Kyrychevskyi, a military expert at Defence Express. He notes that the Russians have not invented anything special that could affect Ukrainian air defense. And situations when enemy missiles break through are mostly due to a lack of missiles for air defense.

“The effectiveness of shooting down Russian missiles depends on how many anti-aircraft missiles we have. There are no particularly tricky tactics in this case. We just need more anti-aircraft missiles. And the talk that we are supposedly ineffectively using our air defense is simply not true. The Russians produce more long-range missiles than the number of missiles we receive for our air defense systems. They have the ability to overwhelm our air defense system with massive numbers without any tricks,” the expert says.

Closing the sky for Ukraine

The effectiveness of air defense can be increased only by creating a layered air defense system, which consists of:

• long-, short-, and medium-range air defense systems;
• aviation component;
• radar and satellite systems that allow timely detection of missile and aircraft launches and provide targeting guidance.

“All this should be integrated into a single system. We are talking about increasing the number of all these elements, not just SAMs,” explains Denys Popovych.

And Ukraine is working to build up its air defense forces. As a result of the NATO summit in Washington, the Armed Forces will receive four Patriot batteries and one SAMP/T battery from the United States, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands, and Italy.

In addition, the United States, Canada, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and other allies will provide Ukraine with dozens of tactical air defense systems: NASAMS, HAWK, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS, and Gepard.

“These systems should cover large cities, military installations, and critical infrastructure. This is the minimum required to survive the winter. But to cover the whole of Ukraine, we still need 25 Patriot systems,” says Dmytro Zhmailo.

Indeed, this figure was previously confirmed by President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Kyiv on July 15. However, there is no way to transfer this many systems, explains Ivan Kyrychevskyi.

“I can say that the United States alone has 500 launchers. Saudi Arabia is second with 100 launchers, which is exactly 25 Patriot batteries. Will they give them to us? No, they won’t. Americans are also in no hurry because back in 2021, they thought about increasing the number of their own Patriots by 20% to repel attacks from Russia and China. So there is a demand, there are needs, but there is no way to meet them. And we have to work with what we have,” the expert summarized.