Military analyst: the strategic initiative in the war is shifting to Ukraine, while Russian air defense is seriously lagging behind Ukraine's

Military analyst: the strategic initiative in the war is shifting to Ukraine, while Russian air defense is seriously lagging behind Ukraine's

On TV Rain, FBK military analyst Yan Matveev said what is currently happening on the battlefield and whether there is a turning point in the war:

Directly on the front line, the Russian army retains the initiative. But there is another aspect, strategic initiative, and that is rather shifting into the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They are imposing their will on the Russian military: attacking their rear areas, inflicting serious losses with drone strikes, and in effect forcing the Russian army to somehow adapt.

But will it be able to adapt to this, will it be able to counter it somehow? That is a big question.

Matveev also answered the question of how it happened that, in the fifth year of the war, Russia and its air defense are so unprepared for drone attacks. According to him, there is a fairly simple answer here, one that even Z-war correspondents acknowledge:

Ukrainian air defense has built a very complex, multi-layered, integrated defense system that relies on an incredible coordination system, where both a machine-gun unit simply sitting in a pickup truck and a fighter pilot flying out to shoot down a "Shahed" receive equally clear, reliable information, and they all act together within a single scheme. Everyone knows what to shoot down and what their target is.

Russian air defense does not have such a system. All this time, they kept thinking they could cope using their traditional anti-aircraft systems of various types. But it turned out that when there are large numbers of drones, all these anti-aircraft systems simply will not be able to keep up with them.

According to him, apart from anti-aircraft systems, Russian air defense has practically nothing else. Aviation is barely used against drones, and, most importantly, there is no coordination system:

Maybe you remember how, at the end of last year, Putin and the Defense Ministry with such fanfare presented reservists who were supposed to protect key facilities, various oil refineries, factories, and so on. That story also fizzled out, meaning they seemingly did something, but nothing happened. As I understand it, those people were not really even recruited.

That is why this ignoring of the threat has led to a very serious lag, one that is now unlikely to be closed, the expert added.

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