On the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the comparison of the military potential of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was an important topic in the information space. And in almost all comparisons of various kinds, experts drew attention to the fact that Ukraine has a weak air defense system that cannot cope with Russian strikes in the event of a full-scale invasion.
Military and political columnist Oleksandr Kovalenko analyzed the work of air defense of Ukraine during the seven months of the war.
At that time, he published an overview of the capabilities of our air defense system, noting that, despite its technical backwardness compared to modern models, it is one of the most combat-capable in Europe, if we compare individual countries, and not as a whole, for example, the air defense systems of NATO members. Today, seven months after the full-scale invasion, we can say that the old but not useless air defense of Ukraine has humiliated the Russian Air Force of the Russian Federation.
In fact, from the first days of the invasion, one of the main tasks of the Russian Air Force was to suppress and destroy the echeloned air defense of Ukraine. For this purpose, A-50U long-range radar reconnaissance aircraft and Il-22PP jammers were constantly on duty near the airspace of Ukraine. In the airspace, Su-34 front-line bombers and Su-35S fighters hunted for air defense systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On February 27, the Russians announced that the air defense of Ukraine had been destroyed, and that the airspace of Ukraine had been taken under control. Then, after some time, he stated this again, then again, again, and as always... At the same time, Russian aviation began to press against the surface when entering Ukrainian airspace, and after a while, to completely avoid actions in the PP of Ukraine, shelling our territory from Russian airspace.
This suggests that Ukrainian air defense, which many "experts" called a weak link on the eve of the war, proved not only high survivability, but also high efficiency thanks to the crews' prompt development of algorithms for countering Russian missile threats.
In turn, the Russian air defense systems were unable to implement the task of eliminating the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense system, despite the resource, which was significantly superior to ours at the beginning of the invasion. But this resource turned out to be helpless and useless against the outdated Soviet air defense systems. And what if these were actually modern samples of high-tech and high-tech Western-style weapons? — There would be even more humiliation and more accelerated annihilation of the Russian Air Force, which should once again make the former buyers of Russian aviation think, did they make the right choice?
