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Russia’s air defenses are under pressure, forcing the country to choose where to send protection.
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According to experts, Ukraine’s increased attacks on Russia have exposed and created gaps in reporting.
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Russia has long had the upper hand in defense, but Ukraine is now finding new opportunities.
Russia’s air defenses are under pressure, forcing the country to decide what it wants to protect.
Air defense is one of the most important weapons in the history of the United States. The Russian invasion of Ukraineand both sides have used them to defend themselves against drone and missile attacks and to prevent each other’s aircraft from flying into their airspace.
But with Ukraine’s successful attacks and recent tactics, Russia must now decide where to place its anti-aircraft guns.
And that gives Ukraine new opportunities to attack weaker areas, war experts told Business Insider.
Russia’s defenses have been eroded
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, reported in their war update last month that Russia did not appear to have sufficient air defenses to protect everything it needed, even in supposedly safe areas.
George Barros, Russia analyst at ISW, told BI that Russia has focused its defenses on the areas most at risk, meaning other areas are also vulnerable.
If Ukraine manages to get past the first line of defense, it could push deeper into Russia, where it is “not adequately protected,” he said.
Ukraine said it had destroyed 59 Russian air defense systems in Junethe second-highest monthly total in the war (after 73 in July 2023).
These figures have not been independently confirmed and there are no objective figures on the number of Russian air defense systems damaged or destroyed.
But Ukraine It has been observed destroying a large number of systems, including many of Russia’s most advanced systems.
Ukraine hits Russia harder
According to experts, Ukraine is forcing Russia to think about where to defend itself by attacking more and more places in Russia.
Western allies have recently given Ukraine permission to use their weapons to attack a number of military targets in Russia. Previously, this was only allowed on Russian territory in Ukraine.
Ukraine has also stepped up its drone campaign, hitting airfields and oil installations, sometimes hundreds of miles inside Russia.
Justin Bronk, an air force expert at the British think tank Royal United Services Institute, said in June that Ukraine appeared to be pursuing a clear strategy of forcing the Russian air force “to abandon its bases within hundreds of kilometers of Ukraine’s borders or to deploy an excessive amount of air defense systems to defend them.”
The ISW update last month said Ukraine’s increasing drone attacks are testing Russia’s capabilities and that the strikes “continue to strain Russia’s air defense dome and force the Russian military command to prioritize the allocation of limited air defense resources to cover targets it considers to be of high value.”
According to the report, satellite images from May suggest that Russia has concentrated a number of systems around the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Valdai, Leningrad region.
Riley Bailey, Russia analyst at ISW, told BI that the increasing, almost daily attacks in Ukraine are putting more pressure than ever on the Russian military leadership.
Michael Clarke, a Russia and Ukraine expert at RUSI and King’s College London who is also the UK’s national security adviser, said Russia had never expected to see as many drones used in a war as it has in this one.
The head of Russia’s Tatarstan region said in April that Russian companies and local authorities should defend themselves against Ukrainian drone attacks instead of relying on state defense after targets in the region were attacked.
The ISW called it “a clear recognition and warning of the failure of the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) to defend Russian cities and critical infrastructure from Ukrainian drone attacks.”
According to Bailey, this happened “because Russia does not have sufficient resources to protect Western Russia on a large scale from these regular drone attacks.”
The problem is bigger in Crimea
Ukraine has specifically targeted Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Bailey said Ukraine has conducted a “fairly consistent” campaign to attack Russian air defenses in Crimea and to pressure Russian air defenses.
The British Ministry of Defence said in April that the cumulative effect of Ukraine’s attacks on the peninsula’s defenses was undermining Russia’s ability to defend Crimean airspace.
Clarke, the Russia and Ukraine expert at RUSI and King’s College, said Ukraine “has been very successful, particularly in Crimea, in destroying a number of Russian radar and air defence systems.”
He described Ukraine as a country that attacks Russia’s air defense network and “then uses the gaps in the network to attack the air bases, or in some cases the Sevastopol naval base.”
He also said that Russia’s defenses are being tested more than ever as Ukraine, with the front line at a standstill, is increasingly focusing on attacks on Russian-occupied territories and on Russia itself.
According to Bailey, Ukraine’s repeated attacks have led to reports that the Russian military is having to continually move systems around Crimea, making it harder to continue using the peninsula as a military logistics hub and base.
And Ukraine’s attacks elsewhere in Russia appear to make it more difficult for Russia to have a presence in Crimea.
Ukrainian partisan group ATESH said in June that Russia moved its defenses from the peninsula to Russia’s Belgorod region, from where Ukraine launched the attack.
It’s an air defense war
Analysts point out that the current conflict has largely become an air defense war, with Russia still having the upper hand.
Ukraine’s air defense is much smaller and the country often lacks sufficient equipment.
Meanwhile, Russia’s air defense arsenal remains formidable.
Warfare experts say Ukraine is also at a disadvantage because the U.S. won’t let it use long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia, where Russia stores many of the aircraft it uses to launch attacks on Ukraine.
With that permission and more planes we would create a more level playing field.
And if Ukraine could strike more targets in Russia, it could stop more attacks at their source. That would likely force Russia to make even more decisions about where to place its air defenses and what areas to leave vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
Read the original article at Company Insider