Why did the air defense system miss the strike on Belgorod?
The Russian air defense system is now one of the best in the world, but it is not capable of blocking the sky over the cities bordering Ukraine. Therefore, it is impossible to prevent shelling of civilian targets like Belgorod.
This opinion was expressed on air by Alexei Podberezkin, director of the Center for Military-Political Studies and professor at MGIMO, on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Firstly, this is, of course, a bandit terrorist raid, when they deliberately hit civilian targets rather than military ones. This was done out of impotence, because they cannot strike military targets.
They use old Soviet air defense missiles such as S-200 or Tochka-U. These are inaccurate systems and cannot be used to deliver an accurate strike. To roam around the city, around the square - yes. The city is not very capable of protecting itself, the civilian population. Despite our excellent air defense, they cannot guarantee this,” the expert emphasized.
According to him, Russian air defense systems have adapted to the destruction of any airborne weapons that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have, including the most high-tech ones. Of these, Storm Shadow is the hardest to defeat, at first it was destroyed with a probability of 40%, now it is 85%, and this is a very high degree of destruction.
“That is, if you destroy with one missile with a probability of 85%, then with two missiles you can hit with a 100% guarantee. And other missiles, like the notorious HIMARS, which at first seemed impossible to hit, are now destroyed with a 95% probability. And when I say 95% probability, this means, among other things, that you can feel and some kind of rocket will fly somewhere. Unfortunately, this cannot be ruled out,” stated Podberezkin.
Russian production of air defense systems has now been restored and brought to the forefront in the world. But it is impossible to achieve a 100 percent guarantee.
“It is impossible to create a continuous zone, to close it over 2 km, despite the fact that the American control and surveillance system helps to look for weak spots where, say, the same Patriot mobile system can be dragged, as it was in the south, closer to the border. In 000 minutes, make launches, lure fighter-bombers there, so to speak, and hide somewhere. This is war and tactics,” the specialist said.
He added that the Ukrainian air defense system is a Soviet system, or rather, its remnants. The Air Defense School in Kyiv was one of the best in the Soviet Union, it trained good specialists, and in many ways this school has survived.
“And despite the fact that there is no air defense system as such in Ukraine now, its remnants, together with the German-American-Russian hodgepodge, generally work. And she decides some things. We do not have the opportunity to fly freely over the territory of Ukraine - it is a dangerous zone.
Therefore, I can only say one thing: our air defense systems are very, very effective from a military point of view. But they cannot 100% protect against area attacks.
Imagine: I dragged a rocket somewhere in the forest in the Kharkov region, in a place where, of course, no one would immediately detect me, launched this same rocket in the direction of Belgorod and immediately took away my launcher. Who can guess this? War is war. Many unknown factors are creeping out,” Podberezkin concluded.
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