The Patriot missile system.
U.S. Army Security Assistance Command
Ukraine’s apparent destruction of 2 Russian planes may have been due to Patriot missiles, experts said.Using its few Patriots in this way is a highly risky and impressive move, they said.But another expert was more skeptical, saying it was too bold a move for Ukraine to attempt.
Ukraine’s destruction of two valuable Russian jets last week may have been the result of a risky move by Ukraine to relocate one of its few Patriot missile systems close to the front lines, experts told Business Insider.
That Ukraine shot down the aircraft with a Patriot surface-to-air missile is a “leading” theory right now, according to Rajan Manon, a director at the US-based Defense Priorities think tank.
He added that Ukraine was unlikely to confirm details like this as it doesn’t want people knowing that Patriots are being moved around in this way “because these are valuable systems and they don’t want the Russians to destroy them.”
Ukraine has not said what it used to target the aircraft — an A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post.
Even so, Mattias Eken, a defense expert at the RAND Corporation, said that if the A-50 went down near the Sea of Azov, as Ukraine claims, then “it is likely that the Patriot missile system was used as, to the best of my knowledge, the Ukrainian armed forces possess no other system which could reach that far behind the front lines.”
A Russian Beriev A-50.
AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File
Using a Patriot like this would be an extremely risky move for Ukraine.
The Patriot is one of Ukraine’s most advanced air defense systems, and it is understood to have only about five of them.
Much about their supply and location is kept a secret.
Ukraine has predominantly used its Patriots to protect cities, though Eken says it’s possible that Ukraine has been keeping one near the front to use against valuable targets.
The range of the Patriots in Ukraine is also not confirmed, though the system generally has a maximum range of around 90 miles.
Ukraine said the A-50 was shot down near Kyrylivka, on the Sea of Azov, which is more than 50 miles into Russian-held territory and away from the front lines.
Getting close enough to Kyrylivka to be able to shoot down the A-50 would have meant putting the Patriot close enough to the active fighting that Russian weaponry could hit it, the experts said.
“In order to take down these two aircraft, they would’ve had to bring the Patriot system right up to the front edge of the battle line, very close to it, which would’ve exposed it to Russian artillery fire,” Manon said.
Eken agreed: “The Patriot battery would have had to have been placed very close to the front line in southern Ukraine where it would have been vulnerable to Russian artillery or drone strikes.”
“Placing it so close to the front lines is a definite risk given how valuable the system is to Ukraine,” he added.
However, this level of risk is why another expert said it was unlikely that Ukraine used a Patriot.
Gustav Gressel, a missile defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Patriots are an “extremely scarce” resource for Ukraine, and Russia being able to say that it had destroyed one could harm Ukraine’s efforts to get more weapons from its allies.
He said that while it was just an informed theory, he thought a decades-old Soviet missile system, the S-200, was more likely to have been used.
Ukraine has converted some S-200 surface-to-air missiles into ground-attack weapons, which Gressel said Ukraine may have used as they have a long range and it wouldn’t be a major coup for Russia to destroy one.
Serviceman patrols in front of the Patriot air-defence system in Warsaw, Poland, in February 2023.
REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
The two planes reportedly destroyed were considered key pieces of military tech, and Russia doesn’t have many of either.
Russia was estimated to have eight A-50s and 30 Il-22s before Sunday’s attack. A-50s reportedly cost more than $300 million each.
The fact that Russia has so few means the latest losses are more significant, Manon said: “Proportionally, that’s a pretty big loss.”
He said it was a “hugely impressive” achievement by Ukraine.
Gressel suggested that losing just one of its A-50s limits Russia’s ability to keep one constantly on patrol.
The aircraft direct Russia’s fighter jets and missiles and warn Russian jets if any Ukrainian jets are nearby, making Ukraine’s job much harder, Gressel said.
Russia has typically kept its aircraft far from the fighting in Ukraine, fearing shootdowns.
But the two planes appeared to get too close, perhaps because they were trying to escape Ukrainian electronic jamming, both Manon and Eken said.
The reported losses may also cause Russia to tweak its tactics, resulting in its air force being much more cautious, Manon said.
But whether Ukraine is able to capitalize depends, at least in part, on its continuing to have enough air defense equipment, particularly as Russia seems to be trying to get Ukraine to use up its supplies — a situation that would allow Russia’s aircraft to attack without fear.
Ukraine continues to urge its allies to send more equipment to avoid this scenario.