If Russia Invades Ukraine, Its Front-Line Air-Defenses Will Be The Most Dangerous In The World

In early May 2014, separatist rebels and their Russian backers in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region shot down three Ukrainian Mi-24 attack helicopters. The following month, the separatists downed an Mi-8 transport helicopter, an An-30 reconnaissance plane, one each An-26 and Il-76 airlifters and three Su-25 attack planes.

More than 60 Ukrainians died in the shoot-downs. Kiev pulled back its planes and helicopters. Seven years later, Ukrainian ‘copters and planes still haven’t returned to the Donbas battlefield. Don’t expect that to change if and when Russia widens its war on Ukraine, as many observers fear is likely.

Donbas is a dangerous place for Ukrainian aircraft. If the Russian army currently massed along the Russia-Ukraine border—100,000 troops and 1,200 tanks plus hundreds of other vehicles—rolls west, Donbas likely will get even more dangerous for anything that flies.

The separatist Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic with Russian help together operate two air-defense battalions with dozens of Igla man-portable air-defense systems and Strela, Tunguska, Tor and Osa short-range surface-to-air missile vehicles between them.

If that Russian army rolls in, a whole lot of additional MANPADS and SAM vehicles will come with it. They, combined with longer-range SAMs on the Russian side of the border, could force the Ukrainian army in Donbas to fight without the benefit of any aerial support.

Lester Grau and Charles Bartles, in their definitive The Russian Way of War, detailed the myriad air-defense systems that accompany Russian army battalion tactical groups into battle.

“Russia has fielded the most modern integrated ground-based tactical air-defense system on the planet,” Grau and Bartles noted. Every brigade—each with up to four 900-person battalion tactical groups—travels with an air-defense battalion. That battalion is stacked with missiles.

For starters—27 Igla or Verba infrared-guided MANPADS with a range of a few miles out and a couple miles up. Two-thirds of the MANPADs ride with the front-line companies, usually keeping at least a few hundred yards from the forward edge of battle. One third stays back with the brigade command post.

MANPADS are dismounted systems. Soldiers have to jump out of their vehicles to take a shot at an enemy drone, helicopter or airplane. That’s not a great idea in the heat of battle. To cover the ground troops while bullets are flying, a Russian brigade also travels with six Tunguska tracked vehicles.

A Tunguska packs two cannons and launchers for eight infrared-guided missiles that can range six miles out and two miles up.

Six Strela-10 vehicles—tracked light armored vehicles firing the same kinds of short-range missiles as the dismounted teams—complement the Tunguskas and, according to Grau and Bartles, tend to stick close to the brigade’s artillery. Protection for the big guns.

The brigade’s tracked Tor vehicles—a dozen of them—fire medium-range, command-guided missiles around 10 miles out and four miles up. The Tors spread out across the brigade for what Grau and Bartles call “zonal coverage.”

These front-line air-defenses are pretty self-sufficient. The air-defense battalion’s radars can warn them of approaching aircraft, but the batteries themselves fire infrared- or command-guided missiles that don’t require radar.

“The intent of this dense air-defense is to deny the enemy use of helicopter gunships, fighterbombers, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems,” Grau and Bartles explained.

There’s no reason to expect it won’t work. The Russian force staging near Ukraine includes dozens of battalions tactical groups protected by a possible majority of the Russian army’s 15 air-defense brigades. That’s hundreds of front-line air-defense launchers.

A separatist air-defense system with far fewer missiles chased the Ukrainian air force out of Donbas back in 2014. If Ukrainian aircrews try to fight their way back in 2022, they’re in for a nasty shock.