Ukrainian patriot defense at work: hair-raising explosions and bursts of light
The first warning was a beep, a small anomaly picked up by a radar scanning the skies over Ukraine. Within seconds it became clear that the blip was a Russian ballistic missile shooting toward Kiev at several times the speed of sound.
It was just before 4 a.m. on December 11 and there was no time to sound air raid sirens in the city. While millions of civilians slept, Ukrainian forces fired several American-supplied Patriot missiles as the deadly battle in the skies began.
Missile-on-missile battles like this play out within minutes, said a Ukrainian major, Volodymyr, the commander of a Patriot air defense battery, who insisted that only his first name be used because of the sensitivity of his unit’s operations.
From a mobile control room near Kiev, his team monitored the salvo of incoming Russian missiles as the Patriot’s algorithms calculated their speed, altitude and intended course. With shuddering bangs and flashes of light, the interceptor missiles shot down one Russian missile after another.
“Given that the Patriot is one of the few systems that can effectively shoot down ballistic missiles, and ballistic missiles cause the most casualties, I think the number of lives saved during the war is in the thousands,” Major Volodymyr said.
That night was a success, but more recent missile attacks have caused more damage as Russia steps up its attacks, seeking new combinations of weapons and trajectories to evade Ukrainian defenses. These attacks have further highlighted Ukraine’s urgent need for air defense.
On December 29, Russia fired more than 120 rockets at cities across Ukraine, killing at least 44 people, including 30 in Kiev, the capital. On New Year’s Eve, Ukrainian forces said they had shot down 87 of 90 drones targeting targets across the country. And on Tuesday, Russia fired at least 99 missiles and 35 drones at Kiev and other cities, killing at least five people and wounding dozens, according to the Ukrainian military.
In airstrikes over just those five days, United Nations observers documented 90 civilian deaths, including two children, and 421 civilian casualties. And President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Tuesday that Russia had fired more than 500 missiles and drones at targets across the country during that time.
“There is no reason to believe that the enemy will stop here,” General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top commander, said said on social media after Tuesday’s attack. “That’s why we need more systems and ammunition for them.”
But White House and Pentagon officials have warned that the United States will soon be unable to supply Ukraine’s Patriot batteries with interceptor missiles, which could cost $2 million Unpleasant $4 million each.
Since the war began in February 2022, Russia has more than directed 3,800 drones And 7,400 missiles in Ukrainian towns and cities. At the same time, according to the Ukrainian military, Ukraine has become a testing ground for a range of air defense systems.
They range in sophistication from truck-mounted Stingers and short-range anti-aircraft guns, such as the German-made Gepards, to complex longer-range systems, such as the French-designed SAMP/T, which can hit a target 60 miles away. There is also the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, which is jointly produced by the United States and Norway.
Only the Patriots were designed to counter ballistic missiles, and from the moment the first Patriot battery entered the battlespace, they reshaped the battle for airspace.
Major Volodymyr, 32, was manning a Soviet-era S-300 system when Russia launched its invasion in 2022. But while Ukrainian air defense teams managed to prevent Russian fighter jets from gaining dominance in the skies, and had mounted a deft defense against cruise missiles, they had nothing designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.
As Russian attacks destroyed critical infrastructure across Ukraine, officials considered evacuating Kiev in November, and a month later the US Congress approved the first Patriot battery for Ukraine.
Major Volodymyr was part of a team sent to Fort Sill, a former cavalry post on the border in southwestern Oklahoma, for a 10-week course on operating and maintaining the system.
“We quickly found a common language with the Americans,” he said in a recent interview. “We are in constant contact with them. When something happens, they worry, they write, they congratulate us.”
After another two weeks of training in Poland, he traveled to Ukraine with the first Patriot system. Within days, his team was tested in battle.
On May 4, Russian forces fired a hypersonic missile at Kiev. And even though President Vladimir V. Putin had deemed the weapon “unbeatable,” a Patriot interceptor missile shot it down.
“It was quite unexpected,” Major Volodymyr said. “We just came back from training and didn’t quite understand what exactly we had destroyed.”
“Later, when we found out, our confidence in the equipment our partners made available to us grew,” he said.
In May and June, in some of the most complex attacks involving drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles, Ukraine’s two Patriot batteries shot down all 34 ballistic missiles that Russia had fired at Kiev. a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research organization.
“There were days when the boys barely had time to reload the launchers,” Major Volodymyr said.
Equally important is the role the Patriots played in defending against advanced saturation bombing. These attacks use a combination of land, sea and air launch platforms to send missiles and drones into Ukraine via different flight paths, descending along different trajectories with coordinated impact times, intended to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses.
In just one of those recent bombings, Russia sent missiles past Kiev before circling back to attack.
Russian forces also use decoys and program missiles to change course mid-flight and confuse air defense crews.
But the Patriot’s powerful radar has a range of more than 90 miles and can track up to 100 targets simultaneously. a report by the Congressional Research Service. The radar also provides missile guidance data for multiple interceptor missiles and is resistant to electronic jamming, according to the report.
Over the past year, Ukraine has created “a unified system of interaction” that allows air defense teams using different systems to use information collected by Patriot crews and other advanced radar systems, said Lt. Col. Liubov Kynal, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military. central air command wing.
“We all work as one organism,” she said.
The truck-mounted command center – which calculates trajectories for the interceptors, controls the launch sequence and allows soldiers to communicate with other air defense units – is the only manned part of the system.
“Of course, we are constantly moving the system and constantly changing locations so that the enemy does not know where we are,” Major Volodymyr said.
The battery’s other major components, including power plants, missile launches and radar systems, are mobile and move regularly to avoid detection.
“We have a constant shift on equipment and are ready for immediate work,” the major said.
While a Patriot battery requires a minimum of 70 trained soldiers to operate and maintain, the control station only requires two or three soldiers to operate it during combat.
“When the alarm goes off, the entire combat team will arrive,” Major Volodymyr said. They can meet in five minutes, he said.
Still, the protection the Patriots provide is limited, like a blanket covering only a fraction of a bed. “We were able to defend Kiev, but at the same time Odesa was destroyed,” Major Volodymyr said.
Ukrainian commanders are now trying to plan for a future without knowing what weapons they have at their disposal.
“Thanks to our foreign partners, we managed to create a shield over the state,” Major Volodymyr said. “But if our foreign partners turn their backs on us, we will return to the beginning of the war, when people simply did not come out of their shelters and the Russians tried to turn our cities into complete ruins.”