Russia’s air defenses are stretched to their limits, forcing the country to decide what to defend.
However, the success of Ukraine’s offensive and its recent tactics have forced Russia to decide where to deploy its air defense forces.
And that gives Ukraine new opportunities to target weaker regions, war experts told Business Insider.
Russia’s defenses are weakening
Last month, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in an update on the war that Russia does not appear to have sufficient air defences to protect everything it needs, even in supposedly safe areas.
George Barros, a Russia analyst at ISW, told BI that Russia is putting up defensive postures to protect its most threatened regions, which ends up putting other regions at risk.
An interceptor missile is fired from an S-400 missile system in southern Russia. DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
If Ukraine could penetrate the first line of defense, it would be able to advance deeper into Russia, where the country is “poorly defended,” he said.
Ukraine said it destroyed 59 Russian air defense systems in June, its second-highest monthly total during the war after July 2023’s 73.
These figures have not been independently verified, and there are no objective figures for how many Russian air defense systems have been damaged or destroyed.
However, Ukraine has been observed destroying numerous systems, including many of Russia’s most advanced systems.
Ukraine is increasingly attacking Russia
Experts said Ukraine was forcing Russia to consider where to place its defenses by launching a series of attacks on Russian facilities.
Western countries recently gave Ukraine permission to use their weapons to attack some military targets inside Russia, but previously that permission was limited to targets only in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine.
Ukraine has also stepped up its drone operations, attacking airfields and oil facilities hundreds of miles into Russia.
Justin Bronk, an air power expert at the Royal Institute for Integrated Security Studies, a British think tank, said in June that Ukraine appeared to be pursuing a clear strategy to force the Russian air force to “either surrender bases within a few hundred miles of the Ukrainian border or commit vast amounts of its air defence systems to defend those bases.”
An ISW update last month said the increase in Ukrainian drone attacks is pushing Russia’s capabilities to the limits, and the attacks “continue to put pressure on Russia’s air defense umbrella, forcing the Russian military command to prioritize allocating limited air defense assets to cover targets it considers high-value.”
Image that appears to show a destroyed Russian S-400 launcher. Ukrainian Ministry of Defense/Screenshot, via X
He added that satellite imagery from May suggested Russia had concentrated several systems around Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Valdai, Leningrad Oblast.
Riley Bailey, a Russia analyst at ISW, told BI that the almost daily escalation of attacks in Ukraine was putting more pressure than ever on the Russian military command.
Michael Clarke, a Russia and Ukraine expert at RUSI and King’s College London, and a former UK national security adviser, said Russia never expected to be involved in a war in which drones played such a major role.
The head of the Russian republic of Tatarstan said in April after targets in the region were attacked that Russian companies and local authorities must defend themselves against Ukrainian drone attacks rather than relying on state defenses.
ISW called it “a clear admission and warning that the Russian Ministry of Defense has failed to protect Russian cities and critical infrastructure from Ukrainian drone attacks.”
A Ukrainian soldier operates a drone. Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images
Bailey said this was happening “because Russia does not have sufficient assets to provide widespread coverage over western Russia from these routine drone attacks.”
Crimea is in trouble
Ukraine is particularly targeting the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Bailey said Ukraine was conducting a “fairly consistent” campaign to target and strain Russian air defence bases in the Crimea.
The UK Ministry of Defence said in April that the cumulative effect of Ukrainian attacks on the defences of the Crimean peninsula was undermining Russia’s ability to defend Crimean airspace.
Clarke, the Russia and Ukraine expert at RUSI and King’s College, said Ukraine has been “quite successful in destroying some of the Russian radar and anti-aircraft systems, particularly in Crimea.”
He said Ukraine had attacked Russian air defenses “and then used the holes in the net that Russia had made to attack Sevastopol, our airbase and possibly our naval base.”
He also said that with the front line remaining static, Ukraine has become increasingly focused on attacks on Russian-occupied territories and the Russian mainland, putting Russia’s defenses under more strain than ever before.
A Russian airfield near Sevastopol, Crimea, March 2023. Image © Planet Labs PBC
Bailey said reports suggested that repeated Ukrainian attacks were forcing Russian forces to constantly move their systems around Crimea, making it difficult for them to continue using the peninsula as a military logistics base and hub.
Also, Ukrainian aggression in other parts of Russia appears to be complicating Russia’s presence in Crimea.
The Ukrainian partisan group ATESH said in June that Russia had moved its defense line from the peninsula to the Russian region of Belgorod, which Ukraine was attacking.
It’s an air defense war.
Analysts say the current conflict has become primarily an air defense war, in which Russia continues to hold the upper hand.
Ukraine’s air defense forces are much smaller and often poorly equipped.
A Patriot missile battery provided by Ukraine’s allies fires an interceptor missile at Greece. Anthony Sweeney/U.S. Army
Meanwhile, Russia’s air defenses remain strong.
Warfare experts say Ukraine is also at a disadvantage because the United States keeps many of the aircraft it would use to attack Ukraine in Russia and won’t allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons the U.S. has provided to strike deep into Russia.
Introducing more aircraft, with permission, would create a more level playing field.
And being able to hit more targets inside Russia would allow Ukraine to stop more attacks at their source, likely forcing Russia to make more decisions about where to deploy its air defenses and which areas to leave vulnerable to Ukrainian attack.
