The air war in Ukraine

President Joe Biden repeatedly replies, ‘as long as it takes’ whenever he is questioned about the western support to Ukrainian war. The stories that the western media runs on the Ukrainian war effort are usually filled with the remarkable courage and resilience that the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) display in warding off the Russian offensive. Truth in the Ukraine war seems as far from propaganda as is the physical distance of the US from Ukraine. News coming out from the war front is difficult to confirm as there are both the western realities of war and the Russian realities yet an ardent follower of this conflict can put few dots together to establish the actual trajectory this war might be taking.

One big military objective of UAF is to break through the Russian lines and cut the land bridge to Crimea. But to do this, UAF needs to launch a combined arms offensive. Ukraine can’t do that unless West supplies it with long range weapons that can hit the Russian offensive assets located at standoff distance and beyond the range of Ukrainian rocket artillery system. European countries which together with American MIC (military Industrial Complex) provide the necessary military assistance to Ukraine has in the last year spent ten times more money i.e. $135 billion purchasing Russian fossil fuel to meet their energy demands than lending military aid to Ukraine. If the European countries are energy-starved and are still figuring out ways to switch over their energy dependence on Russia, it is hard to believe they will pump in more capital to increase military support to Ukraine, especially when such support clearly signals an escalation in the conflict.

As an independent observer one feels that the western military aid and arming of Ukraine is less about ensuring global peace and security and more about preserving their own safety. For this reason, West will never arm and extend unlimited military support to Ukraine because: one that it does not want escalation in the conflict; and two it wants to give enough aid just to keep the stalemate going and never putting Ukraine in a position to finish the job.

A very pertinent question to ask is whether Ukraine would ever be in a position to finish the job. Finishing the job for Ukraine in this conflict means driving the Russian forces out of the Ukrainian territory and declare victory. More than the ground offensive, the war in Ukraine is being fought in the air. Air warfare is the dominant condition creator, and an assessment of who is holding the upper hand in this war clearly suggests who the fortunes of war are favouring. The biggest challenge Ukraine faces is to enhance its air space protection system against the high precision Russian weapons. The core of Ukrainian Air Defence System comprises the Soviet made SAMS (S-300, Buk). It is not the SAMS but the shortage of its ammunition that is becoming the biggest Ukrainian worry. SAMs without ammunition are like boots without laces or a car without fuel and if Russia keeps up the intensity of its missile attacks and continues to draw consistent Ukrainian SAMs response, in all likelihood Ukraine will run out of the ammo the next few months. This would mean that more than worrying about the incoming Russian missiles, Ukraine is more worried about finding a vendor who could supply it with the much-needed SAMs ammunition. So, in the absence of SAMs what does Ukraine have to do to shoot down Russian missiles and drones? And if it cannot do that, the critical Ukrainian military facilities will be defenceless and exposed to Russian attack. Russia claims to have already destroyed many of Ukrainian SAM batteries, and the existing Ukrainian defence is already in a state of limbo.

The critical question for the US and the European countries is whether they would help Ukraine build up its Air Defence System and supply President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the F-16 fighter jet that he keeps insisting that he badly needs. One way to help enhance the Ukrainian Air Defence System is to supply it with their own air defence system. But is the integration of NATO defence system in the Ukranian defence system a viable option? The NATO air defence system is designed to control one strictly defined sector of a given air space which means that this arrangement would neither help in creating the much needed “Iron Dome” over Ukraine nor it will help in intercepting the tactical missiles moving along an aeroballistics trajectory.

Providing anti-aircraft missile system such as Patriot to Ukraine may not be enough. It has its drawbacks. Setting it up for combat operations requires twenty to thirty minutes. It’s like putting up a junkie against the drawing capability of Clint Eastwood in a duel. He will be shot between his eyes before he can reach out to his holster for the pistol. Another issue is the supply of the Patriot missiles. How much can the US supply if its MIC produces up to 300 in a year. Patriots are also incapable of targeting low flying objects flying at the height of 60 to 100 meters which makes them sitting ducks for unarmed vehicles if they can sneak through to attack them. So, in a high intensity air war zone, Patriots alone are not sufficient and they need to be employed in conjunction with the likes of French Crotale to help and track missiles approaching at low altitudes.

A word on Russian ballistic missiles Iskander and Dagger. These missiles rise to a very high altitude and from there almost vertically fall on the targets with great speed. It becomes extremely difficult to engage them. One beautiful way of describing the inability of the Ukrainian air defence system to engage these missiles was by a Ukrainian air defence officer who commented, “how can you make something fall which is already falling with great speed!” The Russian Dagger is capable of accelerating to a speed of mach 10 which is 14000 km per hour. Given the speed of Dagger and Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile, the less than capable Ukrainian air defence system will always have little time for reaction and defence. It’s interesting to follow the air warfare in the Ukrainian war as the one who conquers the air space will win on ground. Russia seems all set to do that unless a miracle happens and Ukraine discovers a new found capability to enhance its air defence.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2023.

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