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Back in September of the last year, I’ve posted the feature IADS, Part 1. Was intending to continue it all the times, but never found an opportunity to do so. At least not until now…
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Before I continue, let me observe that, ‘originally (i.e. before the Russian all-out invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022), I was publishing my online analysis of different wars for a group of friends: all either veterans of different air forces or air defence services, or having other kind of professional interest, or well-informed about related topics. Over the time, a lots of readers began following, who simply have no clear ideas about ‘air defence’, or only the most basic clues.
No, I’m not patronising, or about to lecture you about anything, and no: you need not being ashamed. The fact is that nobody knows everything. I can’t repair a car; my knowledge in installing an electric lamp, or healing a patient suffering from covid is non-existent; and I’ve got no clue about ‘markets’, either. Is a simple matter of life. Each of us is ‘specialised’ in some other discipline.
Therefore, for those who are new into this topic, and/or not used to deal with military-technical related issues, and/or to help you completely understand the following, I recommend checking a number of earlier features posted on this blog. Especially those discussing specific weapons systems and related tactics. The ‘recommended read’ is something like this:
- Assault Mode, Part 5, and
- Saints, Thunders & Lightnings, Part 1,
- Saints, Thunders & Lightnings, Part 2,
- Saints, Thunders & Lightnings, Part 3, and
- Saints, Thunders & Lightnings, Part 4;
- Roaming 138th…. to which you might want to add also:
- Mobutu Syndrome, Part 3, and
- Know thy Enemy, and then of course:
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In earlier features, I’ve described how the ideas for modern-day integrated air defence systems (IADS’) came into being, how did their doctrine and strategy develop over the time, the basics of ‘how that works’, and (in the Part 1) what lessons were drawn from such experiences and are influencing the related thinking and operations of the Russians and Ukrainians until this very day. Now, lets have a look at how did the Ukrainian IADS (‘Virazh-Plansheet’) develop since the Russian invasion of 24 February 2022.
Before I go on, mind that in Ukraine, that IADS is operated by the Air Force and Air Defence Force (PSZSU; I’m usually shortening this with PSU). While the PSU is including units equipped with heavy surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems (as of Feb 22, these were S-300s, Buk M1s etc.), lighter systems, like Osa-AKM (‘SA-13 Gopher’), were (and still are) operated by the army/ground forces. Nevertheless, these lighter SAM systems were integrated into the PSU’s IADS. What was not integrated were man-portable air defence systems (MANPADs).
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Based on currently-available information, as of early morning of 24 Feb 2022, the IADS of the PSU had a total of about 80 radar stations. Essentially, there was one major radar station near every major city, at every air base and/or airport, and – in the east of the country – near every major town, too (see Kramatorsk as a good example). While the majority of these radars was working that morning, and thus the resulting network covering all of the Ukrainian airspace (only the coverage of the Black Sea and the Russian-occupied Crimea was poor), the mass of units operating heavy SAMs was not in position. They were still tidily garrisoned in their bases. A few battalions were on field exercises.
(I know, the usually available story released by official Kyiv and thus its allies in ‘the West’ is entirely different. However, when one carefully follows what’s published in the Ukrainian media, not to talk about asking participants and eyewitnesses, the situation is plain clear.)
Even if the PSU withdrew some of its aircraft and helicopters from bases in the north-east of the country, the mass of units received a warning only two- or less hours before the attack and were caught while still at their bases. Foremost units in the south were not alerted: both air defences and Su-25s of the PSU forward deployed at Melitopol, just for example, were all caught by surprise (please mind that all descriptions here are ‘very general’: a detailed, blow-by-blow account is provided in the book War in Ukraine, Volume 6.) Correspondingly, the situation in regards of deployment of the PSU’s SAMs as of that morning was actually looking something like this (where every blue circle with radius of about 30km is marking one active Buk M1 firing unit):
Obviously, except for radars (for example: at Antonov IAP, north-west of Kyiv), and few Buk M1 units deployed along the former ‘Line of Control’ (the frontline from 2014-2015), plus, possibly, one SAM-unit in the Mariupol area, no SAM units were up and active. Unsurprisingly, the Russians found it relatively easy to pound dozens and the hundreds of targets by ballistic- and cruise missiles – and that all the way from Kyiv, Chernihiv, via Kharkiv (where much of the S-300-equipped 302nd Air Defence Regiment’s equipment was destroyed in the first minutes of the war), down to Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, Melitopol, Kherson, Mykolaiv, to Odesa.
Unsurprisingly considering the damage the initial Russian strikes have caused, and considering subsequent developments on the ground (like the Russian siege of Mariupol) – especially in the east and south-east – the PSU’s IADS in areas like Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol was also never really re-built.
Of course, once the ‘shooting’ began, the PSU scrambled into action. However, by then a number of its units was rather busy recovering and repairing damaged equipment, or escaping from the advancing Russians (Melitopol & Kherson areas), than with fighting. Unsurprisingly, it took a while until the service began reconstructing its IADS (a detailed, blow-by-blow account of that process is available in War in Ukraine, Volume 7.)
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The next issue was that of what to do: i.e. where to deploy surviving units and what to fight?
The initial ‘reflex’ was to protect Kyiv: it’s the seat of the government and the Russians deployed a reinforced combined arms army, and some six regiments of their air-space force (VKS) to seize it. Therefore, the first element of the Virazh-Plansheet – something like ‘sub-IADS’ – became active in that area and included S-300 and Buk M1 units (most of them positioned rather at discretion of their own commanders than on order from above).
This is what also caused significant losses of the VKS in this- and in the Zhytomyr area, in late February and early March 2022.
The next part of the Virazh-Plansheet recovered was the one responsible for the defence of Odesa and Mykolaiv. This became ‘operational enough’ to cause heavy VKS losses as this was supporting the final push of the 49th CAA from Mykolaiv via Bashtanka and Voznesensk (to Odesa), in early March 2022… Even then, actually: the mass of Russian losses in this area (especially of those in helicopters involved in heliborne assaults of the Battle of Voznesensk, north of Mykolaiv) of early March 2022 was caused by Polish-made Piorun MANPADs, which came as an extremely rude surprise for the Russians.
During the same month, additional elements of the Virazh-Plansheet were reactivated in central- and western Ukraine (Lviv, Staorkostyantyniv, Vinnytsia, Kryvyi Rih, and Dnipro), though by the time the PSU experienced ever growing problems just with finding enough units to cover all the command nodes and strategically important installations it had to defend. There were too many of things that needed defence and too few units and too little equipment. Although before the war its IADS was the ‘third biggest in Europe’, the PSU was geared for ‘fighting the Russians in the Donbas’, and neither equipped nor trained to protect the country from an all-out invasion: ‘the Russians would never do that’, and there was ‘not enough money for that’…
Unsurprisingly, through April and May, the Russians found it relatively easy to deploy their ballistic- and cruise missiles – plus occasional air strikes by fighter-bombers – to destroy the mass of the Ukrainian oil industry, just for example (see: refineries, like the one in Kremenchuk, not to talk about all the possible petrol/oil/lubricants [POL] storage depots). Fortunately for Ukraine, the Keystone Cops in Moscow have run that campaign in haphazard fashion: one day they would target refineries, then the ZSU units along the frontline, then Ukrainian air defence units, then refineries again, then military bases or training centres of the ZSU, etc… their ‘second missile offensive’ (the first was the one that opened the war), was anything else than well-orchestrated, or following a clear plan. Moreover, the Keystone Cops had massively exaggerated expectations for effects of their missile strikes: they were expecting these to obliterate entire units of the PSU. Finally, the number of targets and the number of missiles deployed was such that the Russians have managed to run out of missiles, time and again, and their units had to wait for additional ones to be brought in (from the Far East, for example). Overall, Ukraine was given enough time to adapt and survive all the blows it received.
On the other hand, the reconstruction of the PSU’s IADS was anything else than flawless. Facing massive volumes of the Russian electronic warfare, not only SAM-equipped units, but flying units of the PSU – those equipped with Su-27- and MiG-29 interceptors – were experiencing major problems with so-called ‘sort’: identification of enemy and own aircraft (also ‘IFF’, which stands for ‘identification friend or foe’). Plus, there was still the issue of non-integration of MANPAD-equipped army units into the IADS. Unsurprisingly, the Ukrainians were shooting at (almost) ‘everything that flew’. That, regularly, included their own aircraft and helicopters. Exact number of ‘blue-on-blue accidents’ remains unclear, but there are strong indications for at least 10-12, if not two times as many own MiG-29s, Su-24s, and Su-25s being shot down by own manned interceptors and air defences…
Through April, May, and then June 2022, the PSU’s IADS continued working rather ‘in patches’, than as an integrated system covering the entire country. One of particularly effective ‘patches’ in question was a creation of a sub-IADS in the area between Izyum and Slovyansk, south-east of Kharkiv (roughly along the Siversky Donets River, as shown below):
This ‘patch’, or ‘local IADS’ primarily consisted of Buk M1 and Osa-AKM SAMs, and excelled in troubling the Russians without an end: starting with the Battle of Izyum, and then during successive Russian attempts to reach Slovyansk from the direction of that city, it caused so many losses and such troubles that the VKS was forced to operate in ever more complex fashion.
(Should there be any doubts: mind, it was in this area that the first Russian Su-35s were shot down in this war. Some of them behind the Ukrainian lines, in turn enabling the recovery of some of their most sensitive equipment - like wing-tip mounted pods for electronic warfare).
For example, the VKS would first send up a ‘diversion group’: Su-34s equipped with stand-off jammers, and Su-35s equipped with air-to-air and anti-radar missiles, all operating at high altitude (to be easier to pick up by Ukrainian radars and thus attract enemy attention). Their task was to suppress any Ukrainian air defences they could find. Then a ‘bomber’ group of Su-34s would approach at low altitude and target SAM-units detected by the diversion group with free-fall bombs and/or cluster bomb units (CBUs). Only then would the VKS send its Su-25s and Ka-52s to strike ZSU units (whether with unguided rockets or with free-fall bombs).
This was ‘never enough’, though, and thus the pilots of the latter eventually had no other option left, but to continue suffering losses while flying the – meanwhile ‘standard’ – ‘spray and pray’ attacks with unguided rockets.
Make no mistake: the Russians tried really hard, and they have caused ‘more than enough’ losses to air defence units of the PSU and the ZSU. Indeed, their aerial operations were ‘pressed home’ so much during this period. So much so, even precious Ilyushin Il-22 deployed to search for the Ukrainian SAMs were operating inside the Ukrainian air space. One of them so close to the frontline that it was almost shot down by two Ukrainian Buks. However, the Ukrainians survived and continued causing massive problems.
Indeed, by June 2022, the PSU - temporarily - deployed a battalion (or ‘site’) of S-300s in the Kramatorsk area, further increasing the Russian problems.
The net effect was the situation in the air over the frontlines of this war as it remains until this very day (‘just replace’ S-300s with PAC-2/3 Patriot SAMs and similar, Western-made stuff): regardless how much pressure are the Russians exercising upon the PSU’s air defences along the frontline, regardless how many efforts are they investing, with few temporary exceptions (for example: Avdiivka, in early 2024), they can’t establish a clear-cut air superiority over the battlefield/along the frontlines. If they want to operate there, they have to conduct massive and complex operations involving dozens of aircraft and helicopters underway in different formations at the same time.
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(…to be continued…)
