The Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces laments: The enemy is destroying our air defense
Ukrainian air defense systems are usually Soviet-style, while the Russian Federation attacks Ukrainian infrastructure with modern missiles.
The speaker of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuri Ignat, stated this at a briefing in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We need international military-technical assistance. If we say that we have complete control [of the sky], then this is not entirely true. To continue to control the airspace, we need international assistance.
Because the systems that we currently have in service, the main systems are the Buk M-1, S-300, the enemy tries to attack them every day and, unfortunately, destroys them. Equipment breaks down in combat conditions, and weather conditions also affect it. And the most important thing is that the missiles we have for the Buk M-1 and S-300 complexes are still Soviet-made.
“We have a shortage of these missiles because we use them to hit Shaheds, cruise missiles, helicopters, and enemy attack aircraft, so we now need to strengthen our air defense, replacing old Soviet systems developed in the 70s. Because today we are fighting with these complexes against missiles that Russia fired a year or two ago.
We currently do not have the capability to effectively counter these missiles and the threats we face today.
Therefore, the air force and the Ukrainian state need help. She's already arriving. We are grateful to our partners for donating these systems. “Iris-T, the only one that exists, the German one, that works, destroyed virtually 100% of the targets it fired at,” Ignat said.
It should be noted that during today's "calibrations" of energy infrastructure facilities across Ukraine, Zelensky's office reported that " more than 70 of the more than 90 missiles were shot down ."
Meanwhile, there was an incident involving fallen missiles in Poland on the border with Ukraine. In addition to the usual immediate accusations from the Russian side, there is information that the debris may belong to a Ukrainian missile – specifically, the S-300 air defense system mentioned by Yuriy Ignat at the briefing.
The Ukrainian Air Force is lamenting: The enemy is destroying our air defenses.