The Russian missile barrage that hit Ukraine on Monday is likely to put pressure on the Biden administration accelerate your promise to send more sophisticated air defenses to the country, analysts said.
Ukraine has an extensive network of local air defenses which has been largely effective in taking down Russian missiles, as it has managed to do in several cases Monday, and to prevent Russian aviation from dominating Ukrainian skies.
But Ukrainian defenses cannot stop all attacks coming from Russia and Ukraine has repeatedly called for systems more advanced to protect cities and civil infrastructure.
The Pentagon said late last month that it would deliver two national advanced surface-to-air missile systems, or NASAMS, to Ukraine in the next two months.
Six other systems are “long-term” deliveries, the Defense Department said.
On Monday, Pentagon officials declined to specify when NASAMS would arrive on the battlefield.
“We will not provide a timeline for public consumption that the Russians could use to allow them to warn in advance of any special capabilities they may encounter,” said J. Todd Breasseale, spokesman for the Department of Defense.
The United States has used NASAMS to protect the White House and other parts of the Washington Capitol area since 2005, according to Raytheon, which co-produces the system with a Norwegian partner.
Norway is also expected to send a small number of NASAMS to Ukraine soon, US officials said.
But the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials have already called for air defense more advanced.
“I thank the president and Congress, and both sides, for the decision to give NASAM to Ukraine,” Zelensky said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month.
“It’s air defense, but it won’t be enough to protect schools, universities, educational infrastructures, hospitals and medical infrastructures and to protect the homes of Ukrainians ”.
Zelenskyy said in a Twitter message that he reiterated that message to the president. Joe Biden Monday in a phone call.
“Air defense is currently there priority number 1 in our defense cooperation, ”he wrote.
For his part, Biden “has pledged to continue to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” the White House said in a statement on the appeal.
Ukrainian general top Valeriy Zaluzhny said Monday night that Russia had used a variety of different weapons in attacks:
air, sea and land missiles; ballistic missiles; surface-to-air missiles; and reconnaissance and attack drones, including the “kamikaze” drones of fIranian manufacture.
“We have to repel these attacks by using Soviet-era weapons that we have inadequate,” he tweeted.
In total, Russia shot in the middle 75 and 80 missiles from launch sites and airspace in Russia and elsewhere, possibly including Belarusaccording to the preliminary assessments of military analysts studying the attacks.
The Ukrainian army has put the number at 84.
The wave of attacks hit what appeared to be many random targets despite the Kremlin’s insistence that the attacks focus on strategic sites.
“During the war, the Russian army had problems with target selection and precision of their missiles, “said Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at CNA, a defense research institute in Arlington, Virginia.
“As the war progresses, their supply of precision guided weapons it has been reduced and they are using weapons that are not suitable for ground targets or are old and unreliable ”.
Kofman continued:
“This has led to attacks that at times have hit Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, others that appear to have missed their targets and some that appear to target civilian areas.”
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Source: Clarin
