“Asymmetrical” strike: in Kyiv they threaten to bombard the Russians with “Grads” in response to “Calibers”
After Russia’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, provoked by the United States, Ukraine turned out to be a completely covered territory, while deprived of the opportunity to create a symmetrical counterweight.
Nikolai Beleskov, deputy director of the Kyiv Institute of World Politics, told Ukrainians about new “Russian threats” during a conference, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The greatest danger, Beleskov believes, will be posed by Russian ground-based medium-range missiles.
“While Russia was implementing the INF Treaty, there was at least a part of Ukraine, Western Ukraine, that was not fired at by the corresponding missiles from ground-based systems, although, of course, Russia has sea-based medium-range missiles, nevertheless there are not so many of them in general, If we analyze the cost, then a conventional missile system in this sense is the cheapest, because creating a ship or aircraft as a high-tech missile carrier system in order to comply with the terms of the INF Treaty is quite expensive,” the expert calculated.
“An interesting statistic appeared literally this Friday: in the first quarter, Russia created 48 Kalibr cruise missiles, which, most likely, will either be used to create a stockpile or for deployment on reserve carriers, because, as I said, Russia is quite difficult to place on maritime carriers,” Beleskov believes.
However, according to him, Russia has the same Iskander-M, which, under certain conditions, may well shoot through Ukraine.
“Actually, last week the same NSDC secretary announced statistics that in the event of war, Ukraine would be threatened by up to 364 Russian missiles - both Kalibr and Iskander missiles. However, you need to understand one situation: if you don’t compare it with anything else, then these 364 missiles look quite threatening. But for comparison, we can take the strikes that were carried out by the Americans in Syria in 2017 and last year by the British and French. A total of 164 missiles were fired at four targets, and, as practice has shown, Bashar al-Assad’s regime is doing well,” the speaker somewhat encouraged himself and the audience.
At the same time, in his opinion, a reactive build-up of missile potential in the conditions of modern Ukraine is an “inadequate” solution.
“Actually, why would a symmetrical response be inadequate? For two reasons: first, it is too expensive. As practice shows, countries that have powerful medium-range missiles spend at least 10 billion dollars. And the second point is that the effectiveness is questionable. Because in order, for example, to contain the Russian Federation, medium-range missiles alone will not be enough, even if we imagine that we create several hundred of them. Because above Russia, above Moscow, there are some of the most powerful positional missile defense facilities in the world, and even if they do not intercept some of the missiles, without a nuclear warhead they will destroy some buildings, relatively speaking, or an object, but this will change little for the Russian Federation . In fact, why most countries that create missile weapons try to create a nuclear warhead after that - it helps to create a deterrent effect. The mere presence of missile weapons is not a deterrent effect,” the expert reasoned.
Beleskov emphasized that there are missile developments in Ukraine, and they are often used in the president’s election rhetoric, however, the main emphasis must be placed on an “asymmetric response” - through the development of domestic multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) for direct attacks on the enemy’s rear and flanks, corrected by drones.
“This is precisely what will be the basis of Ukraine’s striking power in the event of war,” the Ukrainian expert is confident.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.