russia proved unable to suppress Ukraine's air defense – General Breedlove
During the war against Ukraine, russia demonstrated its inability to suppress opponent air defenses, even though NATO thought it had such capabilities.
The former Supreme Commander of the NATO Joint Forces in Europe, retired General Philip Breedlove, stated this during the Warsaw Security Forum, Ukrinform reports.
"The russian air force proved unable to gain dominance in the airspace of Ukraine," the American general stated.
According to him, one of the reasons why russia failed to do this is the flourishing and sufficient work of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Being much smaller than the russians, they were able to "be very successful in hiding their capabilities and locations" and "thwart all russian efforts to establish air dominance."
"Smaller in size and capabilities, the air force was used very effectively and caused many problems for russia during airstrikes," said Breedlove.
He pointed out that in the first days of the invasion, "russia fired hundreds of missiles, but many of them did not reach anywhere because Ukraine constantly moved its air defenses."
According to him, such successful maneuvering of Ukrainian air defense systems became possible, to a certain extent, thanks to the help of the intelligence services of Western countries.
In addition, the general noted that the Ukrainian Air Force, given the much smaller number of aircraft, also "didn't waste its forces in those places where they knew they would not be able to do everything well."
The former Supreme Commander of the NATO Joint Forces in Europe stated that russia had lost its ability to perform the task of suppressing enemy air defenses (SEAD, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses).
"But russia has also demonstrated that it has lost the capability set we thought it had. We use the term SEAD here. We thought russia could still do this. But if they had it, they have now lost it. Because the russians have not demonstrated the ability to track, install, strike and destroy Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile systems," Breedlove said.
