In more than a year of full-scale war unleashed by Russia, Ukrainian soldiers have changed their approach to shooting down air targets. If at the beginning of the invasion it was possible to destroy a few missiles, now the results are much better.

At first, they shot down a few missiles, because they did not acquire these capabilities. Yury Ignat, speaker of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, spoke about this in an exclusive interview with Channel 24 .

The result is saved lives and infrastructure

At the beginning of a full-scale war, there were 20 – 30% of missiles being shot down. Warriors also used fighter aircraft, however, this is very difficult. More often they began to use MANPADS as part of mobile fire groups of all defense forces of Ukraine.

Ignat noted that the MANPADS operator has very little time to make a decision. An enemy missile flies at a speed of 800 – 900 kilometers per hour. First, you need to see it visually, which is very difficult at night. Secondly, to escort – to launch the MANPADS itself, point the target at the missile, capture and fire accurately.

But we began to see that this could in principle work as a question in the system of interaction. To do this, they began to create mobile fire groups and observation posts. And this slightly strengthened the air defense. If even 10% of the missiles are shot down from those MANPADS, and now somewhere they are, then this is already a result and saved lives and infrastructure, – the speaker of the Air Force emphasized.

By the way, the indicators of hitting targets began to grow rapidly when Western weapons arrived in Ukraine: for example, NASAMS, Iris-T and others.

Note! During a massive Russian attack on March 9, the air defense forces, together with other units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine , shot down 34 out of 48 Kh-101 / Kh-555 and Caliber cruise missiles. Also, 4 Iranian drones were turned into scrap metal.