Trying to exhaust Ukrainian air defense: Russians use decoy missiles – ISW
During the December 8 attack on Kyiv, Russians used decoy missiles to confuse and exhaust Ukrainian air defenses.
This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
On December 9, a Russian military blogger reported that Russian troops were using X-55 cruise missiles, which are very similar to the modernized version of the X-101 missile. The goal was to mislead and exhaust Ukrainian air defense.
“The use of decoy missiles was the reason why Russian missiles could not successfully hit any targets in Kyiv and were shot down by air defense. The blogger complained that it was “virtually impossible” for Russian troops to launch enough X-55 decoy missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian air defense due to the limited number of Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers,” the report said.
ISW analysts note that earlier, the Russians used X-55 missiles along with other missile and drone variants as decoys or “decoys” to overload Ukrainian air defense and provoke a shortage of precision missile stocks.
Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets said that before large-scale long-range strikes on targets in eastern and southern Ukraine, Russian troops are conducting intensive aerial reconnaissance. On December 8, prior to the missile strikes, the Russians conducted seven reconnaissance flights, which is significantly more than the one or two flights in the previous days.
“In this way, the aggressor army is probably trying to counteract Ukraine’s limited air defense system ahead of the expected large-scale winter missile campaign,” the expert added.
The Ukrainian forces do not yet have enough air defense systems to cover the entire territory as tightly as Kyiv is covered.
