HISTORY

The air war

over Ukraine

The second month

TEXT: MIRO BARIČ

Ukraine's R-360 Neptun anti-ship missile during tests in 2019.

The air force and missiles more and more prove themselves as a decisive factor in the Russian military strategy in Ukraine. By the same

token, air defense is important for Ukraine. The previous summary

ended on March 16 so today we will look into the events in the Ukrainian skies that have happened up until April 16.

There were significant changes on the

ground, Russians realized that they lacked

resources to attack in four directions at the

same time. In Kherson the Russians went

on defense. Kharkov is still under Russian bombardment but at Kiev the Russian

troops had to completely withdraw from

Ukrainian territory. During March 16 and

April 16 Donbas faced the strongest Russian pressure. Also, the brunt of the Russian

AF activities was concentrated there.

The Russian troops retreating from Kiev

left behind the destroyed cities and murdered civilians. Namely the Buche massacre

marked the significant shift in the attitude

of Western allies. While up until then mainly

portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons were supplied to Ukraine the heavy

weapons started to flow into the country-tanks, armored vehicles, cannons or

missile launchers from Czech Republic,

Poland, USA, Britain or Australia. Slovakia

supplied one battery of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Ukraine. The Americans

were preparing the supply of 16 helicopters

Mi-17 originally earmarked for Afghanistan.

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More advanced weapon systems were

mentioned more often. The Ukrainian ambassador to the USA, Oksana Markarova,

started negotiations with General Atomics

representatives about the potential supplies to the Ukrainian armed forces. Even

though details were not published Gray

Eagle, Predator or even Reaper drones are

being considered. While the Turkish made

Bayraktar TB2 drone currently in the Ukrainian inventory can carry 150 kilos of the

ordnance on four attachment points Reaper

can carry ten times more ammunition on

seven hard points.

Even though Predators or Reapers are currently a matter of the future, during the

preparation of this article supplies of the

so-called “kamikaze drones” Switchblade

were on the way. And not only on the way –

the Ukrainians reported the first successful deployment. They destroy the target by

direct impact. They are launched from the

tube similar to the mine launcher. After it is

launched the drone extends its wings and

propeller in the rear. Then it flies towards

the target searching for it with a camera in

the nose. There are two versions of Switchblade. The older and smaller model 300

is designed to destroy troops, cannons, or

light vehicles. It is 50 cm long, weighs 2.5

kilos and its range is 10 kilometers. Switchblade 600 can also destroy armored

vehicles. It is 130 cm long, weighs 25 kilos and its range is 40 kilometers. Ukraine

was supplied with both versions. The small

group of Ukrainian soldiers was trained in

the USA how to use these drones and they

currently train other local troops.

More destroyed than in use...

As we mentioned Bayraktars, the Russian side claimed to have already destroyed

around 50 of them. That is quite an interesting phenomenon because before the war

Ukraine had a maximum 20 to 24 in their inventory and during March another 16 were

delivered from Turkey. That is a total of 40

Bayraktars in the Ukrainian inventory. It seems that some of them were destroyed by

the Russian army twice! Joking aside - the

loss of only three Bayraktars is photographically documented. During the fighting in

the northern Ukraine these drones were

pretty efficient because the Russian army

could only advance in columns and drones

destroyed their anti-aircraft systems (such

as Buk) sooner than they managed to get

into the firing position. Not even traveling

in the alarm mode helped since Bayraktar

offers very small radar reflection surfaces

May 2022