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Successful attacks by Ukrainian drones in the depths of Russian territory testify to the significant degradation of the air defense system in Russia.
George Barros, an expert on Russia at the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), told Business Insider about this.
He noted that Ukrainian aircraft began to penetrate where, in theory, they should not have been allowed. "Russian air defense should have destroyed them very easily," he emphasized.
The expert recalled that at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian air defense was a formidable opponent for Ukrainian aviation. The Russians shot down Ukrainian planes and missiles, largely depriving Ukraine of access to Russian airspace.
But over time, Russia's air defense became "stretched", which gave Ukraine new opportunities. According to him, Russia "neglected the protection of territories" that are not close to Ukraine. Then, starting from the spring of 2024, Ukraine was able to take Russia's air defense out of the game "very deliberately".
Many Russian air defense systems were damaged and destroyed by Ukraine, and now the SFU is attacking targets that were previously unreachable. The expert emphasizes that now the main problem for Ukraine is to break through the border regions of the Russian Federation, saturated with anti-aircraft missiles, and beyond that the territory of the aggressor "is not adequately protected."
Barros calls the April attack on Tatarstan, which is more than 1200 km from Ukraine, a clear evidence of this. A small plane, converted by the Ukrainians into a kamikaze drone, was able to overcome such a huge distance without obstacles.
“This incident was very revealing and showed that the Russians probably positioned their air defenses in such a way that they had good coverage in the immediate theater around Ukraine. But they don't have it outside of it," Barros said.
ISW said that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries "continue to put pressure on the Russian air defense umbrella and force the Russian military command to prioritize the allocation of limited air defense assets to cover what it considers important targets."
