06/11/2024 

On April 17, the airport in Dzhankoy was hit, which knocked out one of the divisions of the 18th anti-aircraft missile regiment of the invaders. The news pleased many, and then a number of experts cautiously concluded that this was only the beginning of the process of knocking out Russian air defense from Crimea – so that the skies would open over the temporarily occupied peninsula. As of the first half of June, we can already safely state: yes, this process is in full swing.

More details about this can be found in the material of the joint project OBOZ.UA and the Information Resistance group.

Since mid-April, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have brought to a systemic level attacks on the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimean peninsula with M39A1 ballistic missiles (ATACMS Block I), costing just under one and a half million each, but causing guaranteed damage to air defense systems worth more than a billion dollars.

For example, China purchased four S-400 divisions from Russia for $3 billion in 2015, and Turkey paid $2.5 billion for the same four divisions in 2019. Thus, the cost of one division (consisting of eight launchers and two or three radar stations) ranges from 650-700 million dollars.

To date, at least three S-400 divisions have been destroyed, damaged and generally rendered unusable in Crimea. And not only them, because the command of the Russian occupation forces is now trying to compensate for the losses on the peninsula of Triumphs, which “have no analogues in the world,” with Soviet “Favorites” – S-300 complexes.

But more on this a little later, for now, to understand the global significance of the processes taking place, here are some interesting figures about what Russian air defense is like in the long-range component. More precisely, how many launchers does the Naked King have?

Potential of Russia’s S-300 and S-400

According to open data, Russia has the following number of long-range air defense systems in its arsenal (as of early 2024):

S-400

– Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation – 248 launchers, or 31 divisions, or 12 regiments;

– Russian naval aviation – 104 launchers, or 13 divisions.

S-300 of all modifications

– Air Defense Forces – 90 launchers, or 11 divisions;

– Russian Aerospace Forces – 310 launchers, or 39 divisions;

– Russian naval aviation – 96 launchers, or 13 divisions.

Some of the numbers may leave you in a cold sweat: how much more do you need to beat out all this potential, which at first glance seems endless! But in reality, no.

Let me explain in the format of the “this is entertaining mathematics” genre. The temporarily occupied Crimean peninsula was covered by two regiments, namely the 18th and 12th ZRP. That is, the peninsula with an area of ​​27,000 km² was ineffectively covered by two regiments, initially equipped with S-400s.

The territory of the Russian Federation is 17,098,246 km². That is, to close it at least at the level at which Crimea was closed until recently, a minimum of 1,266 long-range regimental complexes are needed. And there are 44 of them in total – either the S-400 “unparalleled in the world” or the obsolete S-300!

Yes, there are only 44 regiments for the entire “vast Russia”, most of which, as one can conclude, is one continuous blank spot in matters of air defense protection.

But there is one more nuance of these strikes that should definitely be mentioned.

Radar stations

Usually, when we talk about the S-300 or S-400, many people have a picture of parades on Red Square in Moscow, where these complexes are pompously driving around on the cobblestones, and the announcers say theatrically that they can shoot down anything and everything. But mostly the Russians showed 5P85TE2 transport and launchers – not the most important link in the entire complex.

But the most important elements of the S-400 are: the 91N6E panoramic decimeter radar, the 92N6E multifunctional radar or the 48Ya6 K1 Podlet – if you’re lucky with such a configuration.

Without a radar station, any air defense is nothing, meaningless and useless. And while the production of launchers does not take much time, the production of radars is the most resource- and energy-intensive process. Moreover, it directly depends on the supply of smuggled electronics.

And the Ukrainian Defense Forces are actually hitting not so much at the vehicles with containers containing 5B55 missiles, but precisely at WHAT directs and controls these missiles. And if, after destroying several such vehicles, the occupiers will be able to take a couple more to replace them from the area of ​​Bryansk, Kursk or Belgorod (you might think that it is very important for them that two or four launchers will cover them), then this will not work with the radar.

The blows are applied to the most painful and vulnerable and extremely difficult to compensate component in the entire complex!

Now let’s return to Crimea.

The sky over the ARC

At the beginning of 2024, Crimea was in second place after Moscow in terms of security and echelon of air defense systems. But as of early June, this is no longer the case.

As a result of the strike on the night of June 10 in the Dzhankoy area, not only S-400 systems were knocked out, but also S-300 systems. That is, after the April losses, they tried to quickly restore the division of the 18th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, but there were no extra S-400s at hand.

And why? Probably because in 2024, both the S-300 and S-400 began to be attacked by the Ukrainian Defense Forces non-stop, as if they were not “a high-tech air defense system that has no analogues in the world,” but a medieval catapult.

Strikes on the network of air defense systems in Crimea significantly expand the possibilities for more attacks on the peninsula, not only with ballistic missiles, but also subsonic cruise missiles (air-based and ground-based). This applies to both Storm Shadow and Scalp EG (possibly even in the future AGM-158 JASSM), and R-360MC Neptune.

That is, knocking out Russian air defense over Crimea creates a flight zone for our missiles (and perhaps not only for them). In parallel, this creates an even greater shortage of S-300 and S-400 launchers and especially of the extremely problematic radars.

The demilitarization of Russia at all levels is proceeding strictly according to plan.

https://war.obozrevatel.com/kovalenko-silyi-oboronyi-ukrainyi-sozdayut-poletnuyu-zonu-nad-kryimom-skolko-u-vraga-ostalos-kompleksov-pvo.htm