Ukraine Receives Air Defense Boost

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Newsweek

Published May 04, 2024 at 6:48 AM EDT


Germany will supply Kyiv with half a dozen radar systems to bolster Ukraine's air defense capabilities which face repeated barrages of Russian drone and missile attacks.

Moscow has continued to bombard Ukraine's cities with drones and missiles, often targeting civilian infrastructure such as energy facilities.

Ukraine's Air Forces said its air defense units destroyed all 13 Shahed-type drones that Moscow had launched overnight Friday from Russia's Belgorod Oblast which borders the country. Russia also attacked Ukraine with four surface-to-air guided missiles while drones attacked the eastern city of Kharkiv, damaging civilian infrastructure, Kyiv said.

German company HENSOLDT will send six more TRML-4D radars to Ukraine to strengthen the country's air defense by the end of the year which the firm told Newsweek was part of a package of aid from Berlin worth over 100 million euros ($107 million).

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/radar-ukraine-russia-air-defense-1897291

[republianmushroom]

1. Good

[dchill]

2. Take THAT, Putin!

...and MTG.

[speak easy]

3. ... and also a new Patriot air defense system

Germany to send new Patriot air defence system to Kyiv at 'critical time', Zelenskiy says
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-thanks-germany-new-patriot-system-critical-time-2024-04-13/

[GB_RN]

4. Good, But...

Olaf Scholz needs to get off his duff and send Taurus missiles. This thing has not just the reach, but the explosive power to knock out the Kerch bridge. That’s the bridge between mainland Russia and Crimea, which Putin uses as a primary logistics pathway because currently, Ukraine doesn’t have anything with both reach and power*.

Ukraine has been able to stymie Russian logistics in the occupied territories with short ranged HIMARS and ATACMS, hitting railway lines/trains and convoys. Plus, Russia sucks at logistics. Apparently, concepts like pallet jacks eludes them, so equipment is hand transferred between transportation systems!😵?💫 🤦?♂️ 😂

*We recently sent long range versions of the ATACMS rockets, which have the range to hit anything in Crimea, including the Kerch bridge. However, they don’t have the destructive capability to knock it out permanently. Any hits would be similar to the truck full of hidden explosives that Ukraine used back in ‘22, which temporarily denied Putin the use of the bridge. It was fully repaired within a couple of months. The ATACMS rockets are too expensive and rare to be used for anything less than a permanent kill.

[Emrys]

6. Russia's diverted a lot of its military traffic to Crimea away from the Kerch Bridge since the previous strikes

That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a worthwhile - and highly symbolically significant - target, and it would certainly put demoralizing fear in the hearts of the remaining civilian Russian supporters in Crimea who rely on it, but it's not the logistical lifeline it once was and the Russians have been constructing rail links to the north of Crimea (which themselves will be very worthy targets for whatever weapon systems).

A strike on Kerch would probably also tie in with efforts to bottle the remaining Russian Black Sea fleet into the Sea of Azov - which is why the Russians have hurriedly been trying to build naval facilities in Abkhazia, in disputed Georgian territory (Georgia currently not being short of its own problems and Russia hardly being flavour of the month there).

[Grins]

5. Defense...defense...defense..

Nowhere in that link mentions “offense.” Need to get back to killing Russians wholesale.