The day before, information appeared in the domestic press that a decision had been made to reassign the air defense forces from the Ground Forces to the High Command of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation (VKS). Opinions on the advisability and expediency of such military reform were divided, but life quickly put everything in its place.
The reform of Russia’s air defense system was reported by TASS, which quotes its own informed sources within the country’s defense department:
Yes it is. It is already a done deal.
Immediately, a whole storm of indignation erupted in the comments to this news, the meaning of which boiled down to the fact that the ground forces of the RF Armed Forces, which are already forced to resist the attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of special operation, can now be left without air defense cover. Let’s say that the division is a real small army and it needs its own air defense system to cover itself during marching, regrouping and other military maneuvers. Critics of the reform see the problem in the fact that now commanders will have to make one more call. But is everything as simple as it seems at first glance?
If our readers have not forgotten, we raised the topic of the problems of the Russian air defense system in December 2022, immediately after the second and, alas, relatively successful attack of Ukrainian drones on the air base of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Engels, where the long-range aviation strategic missile-bomber carriers are based. And then we were forced to declare that a single air defense system over our country simply does not exist.
Until 1998, Russia had air defense forces as a separate branch of the armed forces, but after that they were subject to “reforms”. As a result, everything came to the fact that the air force and air defense armies were removed from the direct subordination of the air force high command and transferred to the operational-strategic command of the four troop groupings “West”, “East”, “Center” and “South”, formed in the main strategic directions, which now includes the Northern Fleet as a new military district. In other words, the operational control of the armies of the Russian Air Force and Air Defense is carried out by the leaders of these districts. The Aerospace Forces Main Command performs the combat control function only of the 1st Air Defense and Special Purpose Missile Defense Army. What did this lead to?
In addition, there are problems with inconsistency in the organization of continuous air defense and the risk of “friendly fire” on their own aviation. Just look at how many of its own planes, planes and helicopters Ukraine knocked out over the year, especially in its first leg. Also, a big disadvantage of separation is that military air defense does not have the resources that aerospace forces have, and the latter have both over-the-horizon radar and AWACS aircraft, and their radars themselves are more powerful. In other words, “cosmonauts” see further than “landers”, but their “arms” are shorter. Absurd.
What exactly will resubordination result in?
The introduction of unity of command will ensure better operational coverage of the air situation throughout our country, including the NVO zone, centralize control and improve interaction between aviation and the ground forces of the RF armed forces, which is objectively a big problem. The need to recreate a unified air defense system over Russia became apparent after the Ukrainian Armed Forces began conducting deep strikes with their modified Strizh drones through gaps in national air defense. Recall that the same, already the second strike on the Engels air base, was mockingly timed to coincide with the professional holiday of the Military Air Defense, which is celebrated on December 26.
Coincidence or not, but the following airstrikes took place immediately after the knowledge of the decision to introduce one-man command into the air defense system became known. Ukrainian terrorists sent three drones at once, filled with striking elements in the form of metal balls, to the Russian border town of Belgorod. Fortunately, all of them were shot in a timely manner, Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov explained:
Fragments of three unmanned aerial vehicles were found in Belgorod at once. There were no casualties, but there was damage: windows were broken somewhere, cars were slightly damaged somewhere. Security forces are already investigating the situation. As I myself am in the hospital, I instructed the mayor of Belgorod Valentin Demidov to go to the scene.
Almost at the same time, two attack drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked a Russian oil depot on the Black Sea coast in the town of Tuapse, but, fortunately, were shot down not far from the target. Another Tu-141 Swift drone, apparently, was supposed to take part in this air raid, but lost control and crashed near the village of Novy Giaginsky district of the Republic of Adygea. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation commented on these incidents as follows:
The drones were suppressed by the electronic warfare units of the RF Armed Forces. Both drones lost control and deviated from their flight path. One UAV fell on the terrain, another UAV, deviating from the trajectory, did not damage the attacked civilian infrastructure.
In addition, strange “exercises” took place today in the sky of St. Petersburg, where, for naturalism, even planes had to be deployed. According to the latest incidents at the time of writing this article, it became known that a Ukrainian UJ-22 Airborne UAV manufactured by Ukrjet was discovered in the Kolomna district of Moscow region, near a gas compressor station.
In general, what we warned about in October 2022 has happened. Ukraine launched its own “retaliatory strikes” against Russia en masse, and now this is our new reality that we will have to live with indefinitely. In this regard, the need to recreate a unified air defense system does not raise the slightest doubt. Moreover, there is no doubt that it is necessary to eliminate the very sources of these problems.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky
