РУССКИЙ
12:18 23.08.2024 •
Missile battery from Patriot System (left) and Iskander-M Launcher.
Photo: The Military Watch Magazine
Footage released on August 17 has shown the destruction of three surface to air missile batteries from a U.S.-supplied MIM-104 Patriot air defence system in the Lyubimovka settlement in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, ‘The Military Watch Magazine’ writes.
The Ukrainian-operated systems were destroyed by a single 9K720 ballistic missile from a Russian Iskander-M system, with the missile carrying a cluster warhead scattering small bomblets across a wide area to neutralise all three spaced out batteries. The loss is the latest of several filmed in recent weeks for Ukraine’s very limited arsenal of Patriot systems. Footage released less than a week prior showed a successful strike on Patriot batteries at an unknown location in Ukraine, as well as an associated AN/MPQ-65 radar station.
Footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry in the second week of July showed the destruction of two Patriot batteries in Iskander-M strikes near the settlement Yuzhnoye in the Odessa region. Footage published on March 10, showed an Iskander-M strike the previous day destroying parts of a Patriot system accompanying S-300 air defence systems near the Sergeevka locality in the disputed Donetsk region.
Destruction of Patriot batteries was just one of multiple major successes gained by Iskander-M systems in July, with multiple other particularly notable targets destroyed that month.
Patriots were first delivered to Ukraine in May 2023 by the Netherlands, Germany and the United States, with Western and Russian sources sharply contradicting each other on whether Russian forces succeeded in neutralising multiple batteries that month using an air launched derivative of the 9K720 missile. With attrition rates remaining high, the United States and its allies have continued to pledge more of the highly scarce assets to Ukraine.
Western analysts have widely observed that successful destruction of Patriot systems has served as a force multiplier for other kinds of Russian drone and missile assets to attack Ukrainian and allied positions, with one analyst, writing for Forbes, noting in March that as a result of the destruction of Patriot systems that month: “the air over eastern Ukraine may have gotten a lot safer for the Russians.” 9K720 missiles use semi ballistic depressed trajectories with apogees of around 50 kilometres, and retain the ability to conduct extensive in flight manoeuvres throughout their flight paths, which makes their missiles extremely difficult to detect or track.
This also allows them to use their fins to manoeuvre much better than missiles on standard ballistic trajectories. Preceding the outbreak of full scale hostilities in Ukraine, Patriot system already had a highly troubled record of failures to intercept much simpler targets, ranging from Iranian drones, to makeshift Yemeni ballistic missiles, and Iraqi Scud-B missiles.
This from the outset left the system’s viability against challenging targets such as the Iskander’s 9K720 in serious question.
read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs
