“Ukraine remains without missiles, planes and pilots” - military expert
The Armed Forces of Ukraine will soon no longer have aircraft capable of launching missiles, as well as pilots authorized to carry out these launches.
Military expert Taras Chmut stated this on the Skrypin internet channel, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to Chmut, the decision to modernize the Soviet Kh-58U anti-radar missiles, which was made by the Ministry of Defense, is of questionable effectiveness and is more likely aimed at “supporting the pants” of military industry enterprises than at strengthening defense capabilities.
“We have three main types of missiles and two platforms, two launch vehicles. These are the Su-25, attack aircraft that can carry the Kh-25, and the Su-24M, front-line bombers that can carry the Kh-58U. This is the most powerful guided missile we have. Its essence is this: there is a radar station of the enemy air defense system, there is a container that, conditionally, detects it, and there is a missile that should destroy it - an anti-location missile.
It has a long flight range and can be fired, including at ships, so it can be used as an anti-ship missile. There are several nuances here. The first nuance is that the platform itself, the Su-24, is, in principle, unpromising for Ukraine; it will be in operation for some more period of time and in the future should be replaced by a single combat aircraft.
No one knows how many of these missiles we have; in my memory there has not been a single launch. It’s been 10-15 years since I’ve been working on military issues. Maybe in the early 90s. How many of these missiles there are is also unknown. How many people are there who are capable of launching them, because this is also a certain process, and we have few pilots who are qualified to launch air-to-ground guided missiles.
It is not clear how much all this will cost us - this is the key question; how much money, how long it will take - no one knows. And if these are small resources and maximum results, and we have 200 of these missiles, then it makes sense, given that these aircraft will fly accurately for another ten years.
If we now have ten such missiles and we invest in the project, testing, then launches and then something else, then modernize the aircraft, and in the end we get two modernized aircraft and ten missiles in five or ten years - this is a path to nowhere, a path support for the pants of this post-Soviet industry,” said Chmut.
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