Amid rising reported shortages of floor to floor missiles, the Ukrainian Navy has repurposed Soviet S-200 floor to air missile methods to fireplace their major munitions ballistically for strikes on Russian targets. The areas focused embody the Crimean Peninsula and the Rostov and Kaluga areas within the southern and western Russia. 4 V-880 missiles had been fired, with chief of the Russian Air Drive Normal Employees Viktor Afzalov reporting two had been neutralised utilizing digital warfare property and one other two kinetically intercepted. “There have been no casualties or destruction,” the Defence Ministry reported. Gerasimov however instructed the Foremost Directorate of the Normal Employees of the Russian Armed Forces to establish storage models, coaching websites and launch positions of Ukrainian S-200 methods and comparable property. The S-200 shaped the spine of the USSR’s lengthy vary air defences into the Nineteen Nineties, earlier than being phased out in Russian in favour of longer ranged new variants of the S-300 and S-400 methods. With an engagement vary of 300km in opposition to plane, the system may doubtlessly attain targets nicely over 500km away if fired ballistically.
S-200s had been largely phased out as a result of each the age of their sensors and steering methods and to their lack of mobility, which restricted their survivability within the face of potential adversaries’ precision strike property. The system’s retirement in Ukraine shortly after the flip of the century critically curtailed the protection of its air defence community, as in contrast to Russia no substitute methods had been procured. This occurred in parallel to deep cuts to its fighter and interceptor fleets. Restored S-200s are usually not recognized to have been utilized in an air to air position in opposition to Russian forces, however would supply a considerably larger attain than some other methods the nation deploys together with newly delivered Patriot missile batteries from the USA. Ukrainian S-200s’ solely notable prior motion was the unintentional shutdown of Siberia Airways Flight 1812 from Tel Aviv in October 2001 which killed all passengers onboard. As Ukraine was not recognized to have stored any of its retired S-200s in reserve, the chance stays that they had been delivered from former Warsaw Pact states. Poland is a very possible candidate as it’s the just one that continues to function the system and has delivered Soviet-built air defence property to Ukraine prior to now.
Firing missiles from the S-200 system ballistically is much from unprecedented, with North Korea having completed so on November 2, 2022, with a single missile touchdown 60km off the South Korean coast in a present of pressure. Whereas South Korea moved to recuperate the missile, the truth that it was a many years previous Soviet constructed air defence asset, quite than a contemporary North Korean floor to floor missile, denied it any priceless intelligence, which made the S-200 preferrred for the launch. The place Ukraine retired the S-200 with out substitute, North Korea very like Russia changed the system with indigenous cellular lengthy vary property such because the Pyongae-5. Different remaining operators of the S-200 embody Poland, which is predicted to exchange them with American Patriots, and Iran which has modified the methods extensively to permit them to deploy from cellular launchers and combine with newer Russian and ingenious air defence property. Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan proceed to function the methods, having inherited them from the USSR, whereas Syria which was the S-200’s first export shopper additionally continues to depend on it.
