A brutal reminder of the consequences of Ukraine’s lack of anti-ballistic interceptors.
Russia’s latest (as of the time of writing) mass attack on Kyiv was a brutal reminder of the consequences of Ukraine’s lack of anti-ballistic interceptors.
Ukraine failed to intercept a single Russian missile in overnight strikes around Kyiv that left at least 17 people dead, the Ukrainian air force has said.
Moscow’s forces launched 115 drones and 28 hypersonic and ballistic missiles at seven areas of the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday in one of the deadliest attacks on the city this year. At least 44 people were injured.
Russia carried out the attack – the third such mass bombardment in a week – as Ukraine grappled with a perilous shortage of missile interceptors.
According to the Telegraph, Russia doubled the number of missiles it shot at Ukraine between June and July. Ukraine’s civilian death toll last month was the highest since April 2022. That total is boosted by the fact that the missiles travel so fast that there is no time to get to an air-raid shelter before a missile strikes.
Ukraine’s vulnerability in this area is no secret. The more that the Western powers can do to remedy it, the better. Russia has ramped up missile production at a pace sufficient to fire about a hundred a month at Ukraine without depleting its stockpiles. One obvious Ukrainian response, given its shortage of interceptors, is to destroy the facilities where Russia produces and stores its missiles. But these are typically heavily protected, and Moscow is also moving production further to Russia’s east.
Meanwhile, European nations are trying to secure an anti-ballistic-missile system of their own, working with the Ukrainian company, Fire Point, a successful but not controversy-free firm and, judging by what it has achieved, quite possibly a business that can get something done sooner rather than later.
It doesn’t take much imagination to appreciate that the interceptor gap is not just a Ukrainian problem.
Ukrainian drone and missile maker Fire Point has secured agreements from over a dozen European defense companies to provide radar, guidance and other systems for the Freyja missile defense project, and is starting to integrate the various systems, its CEO has said.
Ukraine had urgently sought partners to develop a weapon capable of stopping Russia’s ballistic missiles. The pan-European project was launched officially in Paris last month by 10 governments and 12 defense firms – including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and SAAB . . .
The Ukrainian company is providing the FP7.X – a faster version of its FP7 ballistic missile – as the interceptor and is now integrating that with the guidance system, known as a seeker . . .
Norway’s Kongsberg is working on the command center integrating the various systems. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Industry publications have reported that Germany’s Diehl Defence — which produces a seeker for its own IRIS-T air defense system — will provide the guidance system…
Fire Point aims to produce a ballistic interceptor for less than €1 million ($1.2 million) per missile, Terekh [Fire Point’s CEO] said — a quarter to a sixth of the cost of a Patriot.
“We’re trying to squeeze a program that usually takes 20 or 30 years into a matter of a couple of years,” Terekh said, adding that there had been at least five tests of the interceptor missile.
“Sooner” is a clearly a relative term, but the sooner that this gets going, the better.
Meanwhile, through the magic of competition (and to be fair, need), Lockheed-Martin is looking at a lower-cost Patriot, although it is only a partial solution.
The Wall Street Journal, July 20 (emphasis added):
Lockheed said its scaled-down Patriot design can thwart an array of attacks, from cruise missiles to “close-range and short-range ballistic missiles.” It isn’t intended to replace high-end Patriots capable of hitting the longer-range ballistic weapons that Russia has hurled at Ukraine to devastating effect.
Lockheed and RTX, which makes the Patriot launcher system, have pledged to meet White House demands to triple or quadruple their output of some high-tech missiles over the coming years. But military officials have also said they need more low-cost and midrange defenses in their arsenal that can be delivered in months, rather than years.
No tests until 2028, however.
This is smart:
In the U.S., Army officials this year launched a competition to develop a lower-cost interceptor that could be produced for less than $1 million a round. The effort calls for a blank slate by accepting new designs for seekers, rocket motors and other major components assembled into a missile that could still be fired from existing Patriot launchers.
And so is the up to $35 billion contract with Lockheed Martin to make hundreds of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptors. These can shoot down ballistic missiles outside the earth’s atmosphere. The Pentagon has also entered into a $4.6 billion contract with Lockheed to build more Patriots.