Russia has launched a series of intensive bombings on Ukraine since December 29, one of the largest missile and drone attacks since the start of the war in February 2022. A shelling that is testing Kiev and its allies, while Moscow seems to have the means to pursue its “air defense saturation objective” “for several weeks”.
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Unheard of since the first days of the war in Ukraine. The country has been under heavy fire from the Russian army for several days, the target of a series of bombings which have affected several major Ukrainian cities – including the capital kyiv, where an air attack caused at least 32 deaths on the single day of December 29. This deadly shelling is also on an unprecedented scale: Moscow launched a total of nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 Shahed explosive drones against Ukraine in less than a week, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“By entering the winter phase, Vladimir Putin is resuming his strategy that he had put in place last year at the same period: essentially affecting the activity of Ukrainians, their daily lives, affecting their morale and undoubtedly trying to strike some more strategic targets – energy production or weapons,” explains General Jean-Paul Palomeros, former chief of staff of the Air Force and former supreme commander of NATO allied forces. .
Russia is, in fact, not its first attempt: during the winter of 2022, Moscow had already targeted certain Ukrainian cities as well as electrical installations to undermine the morale of the population. But the bombings of recent days are different in several ways, starting with the method used by Moscow. “These bombings are more massive, better coordinated and more effective,” specifies General Jean-Paul Palomeros. “The Russians are able to better concentrate their fire, which is all the more dangerous for the Ukrainians.”
“War effort” of Russian industry
One of the main Russian military objectives is to test the resistance of Ukrainian air defense, which has been in great demand in recent days. For the December 29 attack, the Ukrainian general staff claimed to have shot down 88 missiles and 27 drones out of the 160 machines fired by Russia. For the January 2 attack, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, said that 72 missiles were shot down out of “99 of various types.”
“Russia has a goal of saturation of Ukrainian air defense forces,” explains General Palomeros. And to slip through the cracks, Moscow uses a variety of projectiles – drones, modern cruise missiles and older ones, ballistic missiles, etc. – which can change trajectory and speed randomly and can enter Ukraine simultaneously, although drawn at different times, as explained by the newspaper Le Monde.
“Moscow’s current goal is to be able to fire as many missiles as possible from both aerial platforms and land platforms to saturate the airspace,” specifies the former chief of staff of the Army of the air.
Added to this is the fact that Russia has switched to a war economy and that it intends to continue this momentum for the year which has just begun: Vladimir Putin approved, at the end of November, the Russian state’s 2024 budget providing for an increase in military spending by 70% compared to 2023. This will represent 111 billion euros, or a third of Russia’s total budget and three times more than in 2021, before the war in Ukraine.
From this perspective, the current Russian bombing campaign is also different from that of last year since in the meantime Russia “has ramped up its arms industry”, as General Palomeros explains: “Moscow has enough manpower and raw materials to fight a long war. And it seems that the war effort demanded of Russian industry is paying off, since the latter is capable of continuing to produce missiles – even if they are not all of the latest generation – to lead the campaign. military in Ukraine.”
The senior official estimates that Russia currently has “at least a few hundred missiles at least”. And Moscow also has allies for its military production, notably Iran with its Shahed drones – even if Tehran has always denied having supplied war materials to Moscow. Russia would also build an Iranian drone factory on its soil to be finalized at the start of the year, according to American intelligence.
“It would be a bad calculation to count on Russian exhaustion”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had expected since November that the anti-aircraft defense be put to the test. “We must be prepared that the enemy may increase the number of its drone and missile strikes,” he said in a video message.
The Ukrainian air shield has gained momentum thanks to allied deliveries of the American Patriot system – notably capable of shooting down Russian Kinjal hypersonic missiles – and its Franco-Italian equivalent SAMP/T – Mamba 1 – which allows you to defend yourself against conventional air threats like planes or cruise missiles.
With the current bombing, Moscow is seeking to begin a race against time, hoping that “Ukraine will run out of interceptors before Russia runs out of missiles and drones.” notes in a note Mick Ryanretired Australian general and associate researcher at CSIS (Center for strategic and international studies).
And the countdown seems to have started. A Ukrainian general warned on Thursday, January 4, that Ukraine’s mobile anti-aircraft defenses will only be able to repel “a few” attacks before running out of ammunition. “The ammunition (…) is sufficient to resist the next powerful attacks,” General Serguii Naev, the commander of the Ukrainian joint forces, told AFP. “But in the medium and long term, we of course need help from Western countries to replenish the missile stock”.
For General Palomeros, the Russian strategy of intense bombing “could last a few more weeks, or even more” depending on the missile stocks available to Moscow. “But it would be a bad calculation to count on the exhaustion of the Russians,” he specifies.
kyiv’s allies seem to be fully aware of the situation. NATO member countries and Ukrainian ambassadors will meet next Wednesday in Brussels to discuss Ukrainian air defense… and probably ways to strengthen it.
