A new massive Russian bombing today revealed the multiple shortcomings of the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense, which coincides with the half-year delay in the supply of F-16 fighters by Denmark. At least four civilians died in another day in which the Russian army hammered the four cardinal points of the national geography, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
The Russian army launched 51 missiles, of which the anti-aircraft batteries only shot down 18, a much lower success rate than usual. The eight Shahed Kamidaze drones were shot down in their entirety.
Two people died in the western region of Khmelnytskyy and two others in Dnipropetrovsk (center) and Kharkiv (northeast). Zaporizhia (southeast) also recorded the impact of Russian missiles, which caused damage to administrative buildings, homes, businesses, educational centers and gas stations.
Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat explained that the enemy used a large number of ballistic missiles, including the feared X-22, but also Iskander and the S-300 and S-400. The arsenal used also includes Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, one of the crown jewels of Russian weapons, which was confirmed in its morning report by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
“Today morning, a group attack was carried out with high-precision and long-range weapons, which included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, against targets of the Ukrainian military industry,” the military note said.
Addressing participants at a defense conference in Sweden on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again called for anti-aircraft systems, arguing that “if Russia loses control of the sky, it will lose all its power on the battlefield.”
“We lack anti-aircraft defense both on the front and in cities throughout the country. There were 500 attacks in several days. Yes, we were able to repel almost all of them thanks to our partners, more than 70%. But it is insufficient,” he said by video conference .
Ignat admitted that kyiv cannot currently cope with Russian precision weapons. “That is everything that flies with a ballistic trajectory. These targets can only be shot down by systems equipped for it. We are talking about systems like the Patriot. That is why today we have this result,” he noted.
The Iskander were launched from the territory of the annexed Crimean peninsula, while the S-300 and 400 were launched from the border region of Belgorod, a target of Ukrainian bombing in recent weeks.
Instead, Kinzhal, 32 cruise missiles and guided missiles were fired by Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers, MiG-31 supersonic interceptors and tactical aviation.
The Ukrainian military is capable of intercepting the Kinzhals in the Kiev region, where it has deployed most of the Western Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, but is vulnerable to Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles in the rest of the country.
As if that were not enough, Kiev assures that it has not yet received official confirmation from Copenhagen, but the reality is that, according to the press, Denmark will delay the shipment of the first batch of F-16s for up to six months due to problems in the training of Ukrainian pilots and mechanics.
In addition, the landing strips have not yet been prepared or a logistics chain for ammunition and spare parts has been put in place, although the Ministry of Defense reported today that Kiev is making rapid progress in the “complex and laborious” work to prepare the infrastructure of Ukrainian airfields.
The first six fighters out of a total of thirteen were to be delivered at the beginning of this year, as announced in August by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, in the presence of Zelensky.
At the end of last year, Russia began the current wave of bombings, which reached its zenith on December 29, when it launched more than 150 missiles and drones against Ukrainian territory, the record in almost two years of war.
The death of 25 civilians in the Ukrainian attack carried out the following day against the capital of the Belgorod region, kyiv’s response to the death of more than fifty Ukrainians in the Russian bombing, further unnerved the Kremlin. In total, according to the General Staff, Russia has launched 125 missiles and “more than 400 air strikes” so far this year.
The spokesman for the General Staff, Andri Kovalov, also reported on “approximately 320 attacks with missile launchers” against military positions and civilian infrastructure in areas near the front.
