Russia’s air defenses may pose a more significant threat to NATO air forces than they would have before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a top air defense analyst warned in a recent report.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has been able to destroy numerous Russian air defense systems.
Justin Bronk, an air power expert at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, warned that not only does Russia still maintain a large arsenal, but it is also still producing its most powerful systems. And its ability to use these weapons has improved through combat experience.
Systems have been upgraded, crews have more experience, and Russia has become better at coordinating their use with surveillance aircraft to accurately extend their reach.
Russia’s surface-to-air missile systems, Bronk wrote, “not only remain numerous, but are also likely to perform better against NATO aircraft and munitions in a hypothetical direct conflict than they would have before 2022.”
Facing this challenge, NATO could struggle to sweep aside Russian air defenses in a European war to achieve air superiority — a cornerstone of Western airpower doctrine.
He told Business Insider in an interview about the report that Russia’s forces are “much more experienced” and have “learned quite a lot through trial and experimentation.”
A strictly air-to-air clash pitting Russian air forces against NATO aircraft likely wouldn’t go well for Moscow, Bronk predicted, but a war wouldn’t only take place in the air.
Before Western jets could operate freely, European air forces would likely need to suppress or destroy Russia’s dense network of ground-based air defenses. Their volume and improved coordination could pose a serious challenge.
Russia still has a huge array of defenses
Ukraine has been able to achieve a “steady drumbeat” of strikes against Russian defense systems with weaponry like drones, artillery, and missiles, Bronk said, but there are still “several hundred batteries” in service, with more modern variants continuing to roll off production lines.
Bronk’s analysis is based on interviews with Western air forces and ministries, data from Ukraine’s armed forces, and open-source information.
He said his findings indicate that Russia’s array of ground-based integrated air defence systems “remains a highly potent threat to NATO air capabilities in a European context.”
The sheer volume is a problem for NATO in Europe. “The primary threat to NATO air power” is Russia’s extensive ground-based surface-to-missile coverage, he said.
NATO notably doesn’t have a similar arsenal.
The war in Ukraine has underscored how decisive ground-based air defenses can be. Russia began the war with the largest such arsenal in Europe, followed by Ukraine, and that scale has helped prevent either side from establishing air superiority.
NATO has committed to increasing its arsenal of ground-based air defenses in response, with alliance defense spending soaring, but it’s not a problem that can be quickly solved.
Russia has experience and upgrades
Both Russia’s combat aircraft crews and surface-to-air missile system operators are “significantly more combat-experienced and more capable overall than they were prior to the start of the full-scale invasion,” Bronk said.
The increase in operator experience alongside hardware and software upgrades “a least partially offsets” some of the significant attrition that Russian SAM systems have suffered during the war against Ukraine.
Improvements to the force include new tactics and procedures, software updates to improve the performance of radars, better resistance to electronic warfare, and bringing new pieces of hardware into service.
New hardware includes the S-350 Vityaz, a medium-range surface-to-air missile system that first entered service in 2020.
Russia is coordinating better
Russia’s forces are also getting better at working together, Bronk said.
He said that in a direct conflict with NATO forces in Europe, the threat to NATO aircraft “would be far better coordinated today than they were prior to 2022.”
Ukraine has reported that since mid-2023, Russia’s long-range surface-to-air missiles have more frequently coordinated engagements with fighter jets near the front lines and A-50U airborne early warning and control aircraft, allowing them to fire at Ukrainian aircraft “at ranges that the surface-to-air systems could not have been able to directly observe by themselves.”
Russia could use similar strategies in a conflict with NATO, “to engage Western aircraft flying at low altitudes at longer ranges,” Bronk said.
In Ukraine, he said, the probability of scoring a kill with one of these shots “almost certainly remains low,” as they require the missile seeker to find the target without mid-course guidance.
But the evolved tactic points to how much more skilled Russia’s air force and air defense crews have become, compared to their less coordinated tactics in the early months of the war.
At the same time, NATO’s air forces have “access to significantly more detailed and accurate data on the strengths, weaknesses, tactics and technical characteristics of Russian SAM systems than they had before 2022,” Bronk said. That can’t be understated.
They understand the threat of Russia’s ground-based air defenses better. And the weaponry and tactics to counter them do exist, Bronk said, “albeit not in sufficient numbers in Europe yet.”
Ultimately, Bronk said, “Russian air defence capabilities have been boosted by combat lessons over almost four years of operations,” and that could require more from NATO to break through in a fight.
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