As Russia Ups Missile, Drone Attacks, Ukraine Gets NATO Air Defense Systems

The US and NATO held off on sending air defense systems when they were originally requested in July as the priority was artillery and missiles.

Now that Russia has increased targeting of infrastructure and other civilian sites, NATO has increased delivery of the promised air defenses. JL 

Jenna Biter reports in Coffee or Die:

National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System batteries, or NASAMS, arrived in Ukraine. An air defense system from Spain also arrived. Because the Russian air force does not have air superiority over Ukraine, its use of missiles and stand-off weapons has increased in recent months. Though Ukraine has claimed an 80% success rate in shooting down incoming missiles and rockets, the campaign has still caused blackouts and mass casualty events through relentless targeting of civilian targets.

A missile system promised by the US in July is now on the battlefield in Ukraine, a Ukrainian defense official said Monday, Nov. 7.

Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System batteries, or NASAMS, had arrived in Ukraine. An air defense system from Spain had also arrived, Reznikov said.

“These weapons will significantly strengthen #UAarmy and will make our skies safer,” Reznikov tweeted. “We will continue to shoot down the enemy targets attacking us.”

The Pentagon initially promised on July 1 to send two NASAMS batteries to Ukraine and promised six more to the country in late August. The recent delivery of two systems fulfilled the July promise.

The remaining six systems will “be provided later,” a senior defense official said Oct. 31.

Because the Russian air force does not have air superiority over Ukraine, its use of missiles and stand-off weapons has increased in recent months. Though Ukraine has claimed an 80% success rate in shooting down incoming missiles and rockets, the campaign has still caused blackouts and mass casualty events through relentless targeting of civilian utilities and civilian targets like malls.

The Royal United Services Institute, a British defense think tank, says the targeting is deliberate.

“The latest iteration is a more focused and sustainable bombardment of the Ukrainian electricity grid,” RUSI researchers wrote in a report released Monday, “blending hundreds of cheap Iranian-supplied Shahed-136 loitering munitions against substations with continued use of cruise and ballistic missiles against larger targets.”

A dozen countries use NASAMS for ground-based air defense. In the US, NASAMS batteries have protected the airspace above Washington, DC, since 2005.

NASAMS launchers fire a ground-based version of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM. Nearly all US fighter planes, including the F-35, carry the missiles for air-to-air combat.

In addition to the US, 11 other countries — including Norway, Australia, and Spain — protect their homeland with the missile system.