The Wall Street Journal analyzed the daily reports of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and came to the conclusion that Ukrainian air defense is shooting down fewer and fewer aerial targets, as Russia has expanded the geography of strikes and is using more and more drones and missiles. Therefore, the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defense is decreasing.
The analysis showed that over the past six months, Ukraine has intercepted about 46% of Russian missiles, compared to 73% in the previous six-month period. In April, the level of missile interception dropped to 30%.
At the same time, Shahedʼs interception rate fell by only 1 percentage point to 82% over the past six months.
Over the past six months, Russia has launched approximately 45% more drones and missiles over Ukraine than in the previous six-month period. According to the representative of the Armed Forces, repelling more attacks leads to the depletion of ammunition reserves for air defense systems.
According to the Armed Forces, over the past six months, Russia has almost doubled the number of Shahed drones — 2,628 — compared to the previous period. In part, UAVs are used to check air defense equipment before launching missiles.
On average, over the past six months, Russia has released 608.5 air targets of various types over Ukraine every month, compared to 423.8 in the previous six months.
The occupiers also increased their ballistic shelling: 114 ballistic and 46 hypersonic Dagger and Zircon missiles, compared to 33 and 27, respectively, in the previous six months.
Ukraine was able to shoot down only 10% of the ballistic missiles launched by Russia.
The WSJ notes that increased airstrikes are destroying infrastructure and cities, "depleting the already meager stockpile of missiles that Ukraine needs to keep the Russian air force out of its skies."
A representative of European military intelligence believes that the next two months will be crucial as to whether it will be possible to contain the Russian Air Force before the arrival of new Western air defense equipment in Ukraine.