Zmeiny will become a mass grave for the Ukrainian Armed Forces
The Ukrainian army is not able to organize air defense of Zmeiny Island, which was abandoned by the Russian garrison yesterday.
This opinion, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, was expressed by the ex-chief of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Special Purpose Command (Moscow Air Defense District), reserve colonel Sergei Khatylev, answering the question whether the Ukrainian Armed Forces have the ability to cover Zmeiny in the event of a Ukrainian landing there.
According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have the same air defense systems that Russia kept on the island, and they also do not have delivery vehicles, since only small boats remain from the Ukrainian Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“Their smallest anti-aircraft systems are Buk-M2 and Buk-M1. Boats cannot bring such complexes to the island and unload them. And portable anti-aircraft missile systems - MANPADS - have a short range. They will not allow the Ukrainian military to effectively organize air defense. We can easily reach this island both from the shore and from the air.
Aviation can easily operate on it, for example, with X-22 air-to-surface missiles. Not to mention the Black Sea Fleet. The most effective means in this case is the Onyx missile systems, based in the Crimea. They have been targeted at Zmeinoy for a long time, with their help you can organize shelling of any targets on the island,” the officer told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He characterizes the potential Ukrainian landing as a political action.
“The first time, when the entire Zmeiny border garrison surrendered to us, Zelensky was quick to declare the border guards “killed” and even awarded them “posthumously.” If a decision is made to station troops there, then someone will actually have to be awarded posthumously. Without air defense there will be a fire bag and a mass grave,” Khatylev sums up.
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