Kharkiv region air defense was 90% destroyed at the beginning of the war

At the beginning of the war, the Russian invaders destroyed 90% of the anti-aircraft defense of the Kharkiv region.

The head of the Kharkiv Defense Forces, Serhiy Melnyk, told about this in Dmytro Komarov's film about the battles in the region, Rubryka writes.

According to him, after February 24, he contacted the commander of the 32nd anti-aircraft missile regiment brigade, and he said that the entire brigade was practically destroyed.

"They still had C-300 missiles, and managed to put them on combat duty. We managed to prevent Russian aviation from continuing to raid Kharkiv," said Melnyk.

He noted that the enemy knew the location of all command posts, as they were built back in the times of the USSR.

As previously reported by Rubryka, before the start of the Russian aggression, Russians believed that Ukrainian resistance would be quickly suppressed, particularly in Kharkiv: the Russian invaders intended to capture it quickly and without resistance. This was told by the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, in the first part of Dmytro Komarov's documentary project "The Year. Kharkiv Region".

"They actually believed that Kharkiv is a Russian city just waiting for 'liberators,'" Budanov said.

Budanov also added that the Russians simply looted huge amounts of money to prepare for a major war against Ukraine.

In addition, according to the head of intelligence, the aggressor received most of its intelligence from the air, so the defenders of Kharkiv resorted to certain tricks — they placed stuffed soldiers with machine guns.

It is worth noting that the fighting for Kharkiv and its surroundings during the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine lasted from February 24, 2022, to September 11, 2022.

Today, after the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian troops have been pushed back to the border with Russia. About 6% of the territory of the Kharkiv region remained under occupation.

However, using missiles and drones, the enemy does not stop striking Kharkiv.