AFU successfully destroy Russian anti-aircraft defense before counteroffensive, - Forbes
The Ukrainian military has been able to systematically destroy Russian air defense systems that protect Russian ground forces from missiles and air strikes. This could play a major role in a future counter-offensive, allowing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to control the airspace over Ukraine.
According to Censor.NET, Forbes writes about this.
"The Russian military has an "impressive array" of air defence systems, with some of its newest systems, including the Arrow-10 and Tunguska, capable of shooting down very sophisticated missile attacks, the newspaper writes. But it is unlikely that the Russians have been able to equip all their units with these systems, and they have to rely on older Soviet systems for many of their tactical groups, which are less armoured and mobile, and therefore more vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes," the article says.
Nevertheless, Russian air defence systems proved effective in 2014 during the illegal seizure of Crimea. These systems quickly closed the airspace over the peninsula to Ukrainian forces, although the exact number of Ukrainian aircraft shot down is unknown. It is also reported that the Russians provided air defence systems to the pro-Kremlin forces in Donbas that shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH117.
According to the Oryxspioenkop, which collects statistics on the losses of Ukrainian and Russian forces in the war from open data, although the Ukrainians lost a significant part of their aviation and air defence, they also managed to destroy many Russian air defence systems, and the Kremlin is unlikely to be able to compensate for these losses with modern weapons.
