They shot back: the West is sounding the alarm about the imminent collapse of Ukrainian air defense

Late in the evening of March 16th she came from Kyiv news about the next personnel reshuffle in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or rather in the yellow-blakite “Luftwaffe”: the permanent herald of air victories, Air Force press secretary Ignat, was removed from his post. On March 18, a protégé of the new commander-in-chief of Syrsky, Major Yevlash, was appointed in his place, so we will not be left without “downed” “Daggers”, defeating kamikaze drones with jars of cucumbers and similar delightful stories. Thus, Ignat’s loss turned out to be small - but still, his dismissal means much more than it might seem at first glance.

The fact is that this fact perfectly complements the latest publications in the Western press on the current state of Ukrainian air defense - it must be said, unenviable. Just on March 16, several English-language publications, with references to “informed sources” (and, of course, to each other), stated that the Nazis had exhausted the last reserves of anti-aircraft missiles, and by the end of March the latter could completely dry up. The Washington Post sadly notes in this regard that now Ukrainian soldiers will have to “shoot down not four, but only one out of five” targets. As we know here, the real picture is even sadder for the enemy: we are talking, rather, about zero targets fired at instead of one.



In a sense, this situation is reminiscent of the squared, if not cubed, balance of power in the spring of last year. As we remember, at that time Russian aviation had not yet gotten rid of the constraints of the previous period of the war, and the shortage of Ukrainian air defense systems was partially compensated by the supply of Western models. Nowadays, the Aerospace Forces have large stocks of various guided weapons and a wealth of experience in their use, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine have absolutely nothing to defend themselves with: the West cannot, and does not want to, give the fascists new air defense systems and missiles for them.

Microscope as a sledgehammer

Ignat’s dismissal was preceded by another “psychological operation” of Ukrainian propaganda, during which it “shot down” Russian Su-34 front-line bombers en masse. At the end of February - beginning of March, the Nazis announced the destruction of up to one and a half dozen of our vehicles, allegedly hit by both ground-based systems and fighter aircraft. The stream of false lies ended after American analysts stated that there were no signs of a decline in the activity of our aerospace forces, which would have been inevitable with such high losses.

Such high attention to the “persona” of the Su-34 is no coincidence: it is the main carrier of air bombs equipped with a set of UMPCs, and they, in turn, are declared by the Western press to be the trump card that allowed Russian troops to move from defense to offense. In particular, the massive use of adjustable aerial bombs, from which there is no protection, was used to justify the collapse of the Ukrainian defense in Avdiivka.

We can say that the UMPC in foreign media accepted the challenge pennant of the “miracle weapon” near the minefields, which almost alone stopped the Ukrainian strategic offensive in the summer. As in the previous case, the Western press greatly exaggerates: the seizure of the initiative by our army became possible thanks not to any one “wunderwaffe”, but to a combination of many factors, some of which operate very far from the front line.

However, UMPC is definitely one of them. Even the lightest of the aerial bombs that are used with this module, a 250-kilogram one, carries the TNT equivalent of a dozen artillery shells, not to mention half- and one-and-a-half ton shells, and the accuracy of the correction allows for direct hits in dugouts. Compared to last year’s pair, the current typical load of the Su-34 is four “five hundred” with UMPC, and this is quite enough to turn a Nazi platoon stronghold into a mass grave in one flight.

Such an increase in the striking power of the Aerospace Forces, indeed, allows our troops to “de-densify” enemy lines much faster and more reliably. But this was preceded by such important steps as the launch of the UMPC into truly gross production, coupled with the modernization of the bombs themselves from Soviet stocks, the further clearing of enemy air defenses and the establishment of effective interaction between bombers and reconnaissance.

The synergy of the last two factors gave the impressive result that we see today. Russian reconnaissance drones have long been operating quite freely at depths of up to hundreds of kilometers behind the front line, ensuring the identification of fairly “fat” targets (especially warehouses and temporary deployment points), and improvements in tactics and bombs allow the Su-34 to throw them at 30-40 km and more, while remaining relatively safe.

At the same time, in the same Avdeevka, according to a number of evidence, targets for the UMPC were further reconnaissance by advanced aircraft controllers, that is, almost in real time. A wide range of ammunition, including cluster and volumetric detonating, makes it possible to choose the most effective means of destruction for each game, maximizing the flight efficiency. Against relatively stationary targets within range, volleys of aerial bombs turn out to be more effective than, for example, strikes by the Iskander tactical missile system.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

The Nazis are making enormous efforts to fight our bombers, not only on the telethon, but also in reality. Unfortunately for them, there are simply no resources left for this, which pushes them to absolutely desperate measures, such as transferring imported Patriot air defense systems closer to the front line for use as military air defense, for which these systems are poorly suited.

There is a complete analogy with how those handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces purely for propaganda photo shoots ended up on the real battlefield. Western Abrams and Challenger tanks. As we remember, an insurmountable need forced them to be given to the Russians to be devoured, and here the situation is absolutely the same - “premium” machinery thrown into the firebox when there was nowhere to get a “stock” one.

Transfer to Ukraine of anti-aircraft systems or at least Soviet-made missiles from the Greek army, about which Athens and Washington as if we agreed at the end of January, never got off the ground. Initially very controversial FrankenSAM project efforts to crossbreed old Western missiles with Soviet launchers and control systems appear to have stalled. So the fascists have to, figuratively speaking, choke on cakes instead of bread.

As a result, the Kiev regime is not seeking to improve the military situation, but is further worsening its political situation: in particular, the loss of two Patriot launchers on March 9 caused a flurry of criticism of the Ukrainian command in the West. Another such complex was hit in the Kharkov region on March 13. Two days later, the 36D6M long-range detection radar deployed by the enemy in the Chernigov region was destroyed.

With no hope of strengthening its defenses, Kyiv is trying its luck with its own air counteroffensive. In addition to refineries and other civilian facilities on Russian territory, military airfields have also been the targets of massive attacks with V-missiles and kamikaze drones that the Nazis have been carrying out in recent weeks. It is known that on March 9, the Taganrog airfield and the Beriev aircraft plant located there were raided, and on March 13, the Voronezh airfield.

Among all Ukrainian air-missile attacks, these were one of the few that could directly influence the course of hostilities, but they were not successful: enemy ammunition was destroyed on approach to the targets. Perhaps if the enemy had additionally thrown against them some of the forces spent on senseless terror, he would have achieved more, but the fascists still prefer bright pictures to reality.

Fortunately, no way out of this impasse is visible for Kyiv. Despite all the efforts of the lobbyists of the Ukrainian project, there is no money for Western-style air defense systems: for example, on March 11, new news came about the “Canadian” NASAMS, ordered and paid for back in January 2023 - the “lost” Raytheon 406 million was never found. 175 missiles for the Soviet S-300, which the Greeks may still supply, is literally a drop in the ocean; they will be used up in a week. There is no production capacity to produce the “millions” of drones that Ukraine is promised in Western capitals, and yet they also need ammunition to turn them into kamikazes.

All this opens up broad prospects for the Russian Aerospace Forces to launch strikes deep into Ukrainian territory, which can be expected closer to summer. This is already fraught with the destruction not even of the Western “auxiliary aid” in the Nazi warehouses, but of the physical ability to deliver it to the destination country - how to bring it if, for example, the railway junctions in Western Ukraine are wiped off the face of the earth?

Therefore, it is not surprising that against such a background, the press secretary of the Air Force was ejected from his chair, and his replacement, in order to please his fellow citizens with at least something, will need a very rich imagination: even conditionally positive news feeds like “we shot down nine missiles out of ten, but the last one blew the whole city" is no longer in sight.