from Sputnik News:
US-made ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles have already been deployed by Kiev forces against Russian troops on more than a single occasion, and speculations abound that these weapons may soon be used to strike deep into Russia.
As the US allegedly green-lights Ukraine to use ATACMS for such long-range strikes, two questions arise: does Kiev have what it takes to conduct such attacks and how can Russia counter them?
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Russia Has Advanced Air Defenses
Various Russian air defense systems such as Buk-M2, Buk-M3 and Tor-M2 have successfully intercepted ATACMS on more than one occasion, Alexei Leonkov, a veteran Russian military analyst and editor of the magazine Arsenal of the Fatherland, told Sputnik.
“Russian air defense systems have a very high intercept probability rate. Where our systems spend one missile per target, American Patriot systems use two missiles to accomplish the same task.”
West Doesn’t Have Enough Long-Range Missiles
Though the US and its allies have been generous in their military supplies to Ukraine, little has been left of what stocks of ATACMS, Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles that were provided to Kiev, Leonkov says.
“Even the shipments of F-16 jets that can be used to launch Storm Shadow missiles did not reverse this trend,” he remarks. “The number of launches has been dwindling and has practically reached zero by now.”
Prior to the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, the West possessed over 3,000 ATACMS missiles (including all of their available modifications), Leonkov estimates. With all the ATACMS missiles that have since been used up in the Ukrainian conflict or simply decommissioned due to their advanced age, that number has been reduced to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000, he calculates.
West Doesn’t Have Enough Missile Launchers Either
Lack of missiles aside, Ukraine suffers from a lack of missile launchers as well, Leonkov remarks.
