Russia began massive missile strikes against Ukraine’s critical civilian infrastructure in October last year. During the major attack, Russia has fired more than 6,000 missiles into Ukraine, he says Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (you will switch to another service) organization based on official information from Ukraine.
Ukraine has said that it can repel the vast majority of Russian missiles. The major general (evp) also came to a similar assessment Pekka Toveri at the end of last December in an interview with . According to the comrade, Ukraine is able to shoot down about 60-80 percent of Russian missiles.
Western intelligence in support of Ukraine’s air defense
US intelligence plays a significant role in supporting Ukraine’s air defense, says a specialist researcher at the National Defense University’s Department of Military Engineering Juha Honkonen. According to Honkonen, the country’s reconnaissance planes are constantly on duty in the immediate vicinity of Ukrainian airspace, for example in the Black Sea or near the western parts of Ukraine.
– Under normal conditions, they can see missile launches from hundreds of kilometers away. If the surveillance plane flies at an altitude of ten kilometers, its view is around a radius of 400 kilometers, says Honkonen.
Surveillance machines collect information with the help of radar. The higher the radar is raised, the further it can see. The higher the object is, the farther it appears.
– In practice, it can be said that Ukraine receives the information roughly at the same moment as the missile is launched by the Russians, Honkonen says.
Aleksanteri Institute Visiting researcher Ilmari Käihkö shares Honkonen’s understanding of the importance of intelligence. However, according to him, the United States is not the only actor engaged in intelligence activities near Ukraine, because “Russia is basically of interest to everyone.” According to Käihkö, many actors produce intelligence information for Ukraine.
– The Swedish intelligence plane has flown on the Polish side of the border, but Ukraine’s neighboring countries are certainly also engaged in intelligence, Poland for example. It is also known that Britain has and had already before the start of the war a lot of intelligence information.
However, Käihkö stresses that the role of the United States in terms of intelligence is significant.
– The United States already started giving intelligence to the Ukrainians in the first days of the war. Their intelligence has been the most accurate. They are very deep in this war just by intelligence alone.
Intelligence information to be passed on to Ukraine can be collected by satellites, reconnaissance planes and drones. The systems use optical sensors that work in the dark and light and Sar radars to photograph and locate targets. Electronic intelligence systems monitor, for example, the operation of radar devices and message traffic.
In Ukraine, the Russians have used a lot of unencrypted connections, but even encrypted message traffic can reveal the location, activity and command relationships of troops and command posts.
The US MQ-9 Reaper drone that was shot down by the Russians last week was probably on a reconnaissance mission, says Käihkö.
– Why else would it have been there? It wasn’t on an offensive mission. Most likely it was engaged in signals intelligence. Reapers have been one way to gather intelligence.
Intelligence helps, but does not guarantee success
Juha Honkonen elaborates that although the quickly obtained and versatile intelligence information is significant, it does not tell the Ukrainian air defense other than from which direction the Russian missile was launched. In this case, an assumption can be made about the direction from which the missiles will arrive in the area of influence of the anti-aircraft systems.
According to Honkonen, it is possible to see a high-flying missile from about 200 kilometers away with Ukraine’s anti-aircraft systems. If it is a cruise missile that flies tens of meters above the ground, the detection distance is much shorter.
– The departure of the missiles can be seen quite soon after the launch, but before the anti-aircraft system detects it, the warning time is much shorter. It is challenging for researchers, because they detect cruise missiles from about a few tens of kilometers away.
Honkonen estimates that the reaction window of Ukraine’s air defense, i.e. the time when a Russian missile can be shot down, is from a few minutes to just under half an hour, depending on the type of missile.
The effectiveness of the Ukrainian air defense surprised
According to Käihkö, many who followed the war had a fear at the beginning of the war that Russia would succeed in gaining air supremacy in Ukraine. If this had happened, Russia could have bombed Ukraine freely.
– If you achieve air superiority, you won’t lose modern wars, says Käihkö.
Käihkö says that at that time he discussed air defense with Ukrainian soldiers.
– They said that they trust it and that they believe that the air defense systems are well linked to each other. Therefore, they were not afraid of Russia gaining air supremacy.
Now Käihkö realizes that Ukraine’s air defense was underestimated in the early stages of the war.
– We were wrong. Ukraine’s air defense is better than thought.
Käihkö believes that air defense has improved due to weapons deliveries and training from Western countries. One way or another, efforts are being made to make operations more efficient, says Käihkö.
– Air defense improves as it is done. The more you shoot down, the better you know how to shoot down.
Käihkö reminds that even though the level of air defense was better than expected, Ukraine needs support for that as well. He considers the most important fact that Ukraine has enough ammunition for the needs of air defense.
– Air defense is always among the top three when talking about the necessary support in Ukraine. Whatever happened, Ukraine must have enough ammunition to be able to repel Russian attacks.
Russia has cruise missiles and semi-ballistic missiles in its arsenal
Russia typically uses various cruise missiles and semi-ballistic missiles in its attacks, says Honkonen.
According to him, the most significant difference between cruise missiles and ballistic missiles is that the cruise missile has an engine that works throughout the flight. In ballistic missiles, the rocket engine works for a short time and for most of the flight distance it travels without engine thrust. What makes a semi-ballistic missile is its ability to make changes to its trajectory mid-flight.
The cruise missiles typically used in the war in Ukraine fly tens of meters above the ground, while the semi-ballistic ones fly at an altitude of about 50 kilometers.
According to Honkonen, the flight speed of a traditional cruise missile is about 800 kilometers per hour. Meanwhile, the flight speed of a semi-ballistic missile is more than ten times that of a cruise missile.
– A cruise missile needs at least a few tens of minutes to fly. The flight time of a semi-ballistic is correspondingly a few minutes. The fork is from a few minutes to half an hour.
Honkonen says that cruise missiles are fired, for example, from the sea, probably mostly from the Black Sea region, and from the air using heavy bombers. Semi-ballistic missiles are mostly fired from bombers.
Missiles are also fired from Russian soil, as the bases of the aircraft used to launch the missiles are located on the territory of internationally recognized Russia, Honkonen adds. He also mentions that Crimean bases are used in attacks.
The missiles used by the Russians are very accurate. According to Honkonen, the Russian missiles hit within ten meters of the target with 50 percent accuracy due to the fact that the GPS system has not been significantly disrupted in Ukraine.
There can be many reasons why sometimes it seems that the missiles hit where it hurts, Honkonen states.
– Something can always go wrong. Sometimes anti-aircraft missiles manage to damage the missiles, but not destroy them. For example, it can happen that it manages to damage the missile’s control devices, causing the missile to hit somewhere other than the intended target.