Not so fast: retired major general named methods to combat Russian ballistic weapons

One of the most painful areas for Ukraine is air defense and the inability to fully repel ballistic attacks. However, even now we can significantly reduce the Russians' offensive capabilities by striking rocket manufacturing facilities with long-range strikes.

This opinion was expressed to the 24 Channel by retired Major General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, first deputy commander of the Special Operations Forces (2016 – 2019) Serhiy Kryvonos, who added that this would reduce the occupiers' industrial capabilities. This must be done systemically.

How should Ukraine counter ballistics?

The next factor concerns the work of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Russia still circumvents Western sanctions, and a huge number of missiles have components from Japan, the United States, Britain, France, South Korea, and China.

What prevents systematically raising these issues and working toward imposing sanctions on companies that produce these products and supply them to Russia through other countries? If we know that Russia is evading sanctions, then why aren't we working with the leadership of countries that say they support us but in reality turn a blind eye to certain outcomes?,

Serhiy Kryvonos emphasized.

It is also worth working with the Kremlin "leadership" that manages certain processes, and with the personnel of those military units that carry out missile launches against our territory. Their members and their families are not protected in the information space. They travel abroad, and that activity must be made impossible.

What Ukraine is already doing to defend against ballistics

Several approaches to solving this problem are voiced in the information space. First of all, people talk about destroying launchers, factories, and depots. We have a license for SAMP-T and we are awaiting a license for Patriot.

Another important factor is our own ballistics, in particular the Freya project, on which we are also working with Western partners.

"But certain aspects of this list are either an undefined future, or a matter of time and money. Because with rockets things are not as quick as one would like. And even producing a prototype is one thing, while producing a systematic ongoing capability is another," the retired major general stressed.

Full interview with Serhiy Kryvonos: watch the video

It's more complicated with industry, and a major problem is that at one time the country's leadership did not pay attention to protecting our rocket developers. Unfortunately, the enemy launched systemic strikes on enterprises that were actually developing rocket weapons.

The Russians carried out powerful attacks on the design bureau and on the capabilities of Pivdenmash. Another important point lies in information work. It is critically necessary to maintain silence when it comes to such serious developments.

By the way, former Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov stated that in the coming months Ukraine will be able to use its own ballistics against Russia. According to him, one of the rocket companies has already conducted successful tests. In early August Fedorov recalled that during tests our ballistics accurately struck the target.