It's harder for Ukraine to work on Russian ballistics, but the topic is not new – Air Force

It has become more difficult for Ukrainian defenders to counter Russian ballistic missiles, but the issue of improving these weapons by the occupiers is not new, said Yuriy Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during a telethon.

Earlier, in early October, the Financial Times said that Moscow had managed to modify their missiles to bypass Ukraine's air defense systems. The military said that the topic of modernizing Russian ballistics is not new, and was raised six months ago.

"The enemy is just gradually testing all types of weapons on the battlefield. Of course, it has become more difficult to work on missiles that fly along a quasi-ballistic trajectory, which means they actually make these oscillations when they hit the target," the spokesman said.

According to him, this complicates the operation of the Patriot system, as it operates in automatic mode during ballistic missile interceptions, and it becomes more difficult for it to calculate the point where the interceptor missile will collide or explode near the target.

Also, Ihnat added, if ballistic missiles come from different directions, they cannot be detected by just one system.

"We need to have several systems, so that there are several radars that can detect targets and cover the city from different directions," he said.

• On September 29, the deputy defense minister said that Ukraine uses Patriot systems only to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles. In this way, he commented the issue of arms shortage to destroy the occupiers' missiles.
• On October 5, the occupiers attacked Ukraine with 496 drones and 53 missiles. The defenders managed to knock down or crush 493 UAVs and 39 missiles, including one of the two Kinzhal aerial ballistic missiles.