the premium sponsor of the national team represents. united by football, stronger together! welcome to the espresso channel. today, in our military program, we will talk about how ukraine can and wants to strengthen its air defense system. ukraine's need for an increase in air defense equipment has become so obvious that, for example, the european parliament this week refused to vote on eu council budget issues until ukraine receives additional patriot systems, because the meps themselves believe that there are as many as 100 systems in europe. patriot and pass

it is quite possible and quite logical for ukraine to have at least seven for the protection of our cities, but these are the words of politicians, and it does not actually mean that the governments of european countries are about to make a decision to share patriots with ukraine. so what is the reality and what can ukraine do to really strengthen its anti-aircraft capabilities both on the battlefield and in the sky. over our civilian cities in view of the russian threats, which still do not decrease. we will talk about this in the next edition of our military program "war and weapons". my name is serhiy sgurets, i am the director of the defense express information and consulting company, which now, together with the espresso channel, seeks to highlight the most relevant trends in the life of our defense-industrial complex and our armed forces. and now we are joined by valentyn badrak, director of the research center.

army conversion and disarmament, military analyst and writer. mr. valentina, i congratulate you, i am glad to see and hear you. congratulations, mr. sergey, as always, i am very glad of the invitation. just before the program, you and i discussed the fact that the war is changing now, and each of the sides tries to use the advantages of technology in one or another way, and the one who adapts faster, in principle, he really, well, has a certain opportunity... work, i would like you to now assess the modern battlefield in such a general way that it is of crucial importance and as an additional question with our air defense, is there also this pursuit of technology, where each side is trying to find weak points the other, well, i'll probably start with a zag. from the battlefield, and

somewhere from september, the military actually signaled from the front that the war of drones had begun, and this was caused, on the one hand, by the insufficiency of the aggressors in russia, both in ukraine and in the country itself, of modern artillery systems and... very i would say, those smart munitions that could be used very actively, and actually, immediately there was a competition in how these drones would be modernized, and we saw very serious things that were happening, that is, the dynamics of technological change increased from on september 23rd, well... just a few

times we saw the creation of drones (fpvi drones) by self-capture of a target (whole), we also saw drones with thermal imagers, which did not happen before, but in a mass form, we now see , just yesterday there was an interesting report that in russia they seem to have developed a communication system and are moving from pprf to... dynamic frequency changes, and this seems to make the situation with drones very difficult, but at the same time, at the same time, the effectiveness of fpv drones is estimated by the military at about 10 to 40%, and they say that it takes somewhere around 10 drones to destroy, for example, a tank, and a lot of drones are lost, rap influences to... very actively, and this is in new,

even old, new technologies, let's say, from hunting handguns that knock down small, drones to, let's say, rebov rifles, very diverse technologies, interceptors are now very actively developing, the americans have already made a purchase for as many as 600 coyotes, yes such interceptors, and all this prompts experts to say about certain changes, now there are opinions that, firstly, rap will influence more, secondly, there will be changes in the sense that, for example, ground operations will constitute, well , the main or core of capabilities on the battlefield, and already at the beginning of january, the ukrainians demonstrated several such interesting things,

well, in particular, the kamikaze drone traveled as much as 4 km to the enemy and destroyed the bridge, this is a very similar trend, very... interestingly, deminers showed that they can demine literally in front of the enemy 100 m and to the enemy, and these are unmanned platforms, these are very serious things, then the development of underwater drones, mini , even mini-submarines, these are all the moments, and of course the development of air systems, for example, china has created what... interestingly created a drone, it was literally reported in march, a drone that can be divided into three, six other drones and create a swarm of drones, controlled, that is , these are very powerful ideas, powerful systems, but

mainly what we have, what we have to conclude, the conclusion is this, we are conducting a combined war, in a combined war - this is when very valuable things collide with very... cheap, but mass technologies, and we we see that, we see that cheap mass technologies are beginning to dominate in the war of attrition, we see the exhaustion of the ukrainian air defense system, we see the exhaustion of the russian artillery, in fact, when drones surpass and increase the effect of work efficiency and perform, well, of course. they do not perform the full spectrum, but only about 30-40% of the functions of artillery, but due to dynamics due to cheapness, one projectile, well, of course , it costs about 600-700 dollars for itself in the russian market, but we now have one

ammunition costs up to 8 thousand dollars, recently the namo company reported that it had increased tenfold to 800 dollars, and... at the beginning of the year, nato signed a contract, which was already 5.5 thousand dollars for one munition, i am not talking about smart munitions that cost more than 60 thousand dollars, one munition, yes, and a drone alone costs 600 dollars, there, if it is more technological, it will still cost no more than 2-3 thousand dollars, but how does this dynamic affect exactly opposing air defense systems, you mentioned that ukrainian air defense slowly exhausted, probably due to the fact that the enemy uses shaheds or cheaper missiles there, more expensive missiles are used for strikes for such important purposes, as this dynamic affects

the formation of the russian offensive strategy there, our defensive strategy, when it comes to anti-aircraft systems defense, a very important point is related to the creation itself. leveled anti-aircraft defense and the creation, so to speak, of a sequence of targets, but literally today we read such and such an insider's report about yesterday and about that a ukrainian s-300 was shot down in odesa, hit by a drone, and according to the ukrainian military, this happened because they were not allowed to shoot it down. the drone that was above them is formally correct, it reflects the essence of the problem itself. now ukraine has focused on the fact that the world is looking for patriots, patriot systems. we know that the patriot missile costs between two and four million dollars. and

uh, now i'm going back to the craziness itself. if it would be possible to take a significant amount, accumulate, yes, collect. a significant amount systems, say, the same skyranger, skynex with programmable munitions, then in fact they would take over all issues in... enemy drones and a significant part of missiles, and then only ballistics would be dealt with, say, the same patriots, and for example , by long-distance aircraft there 50-70 km from the front line. this is an important point. the second important point is that you need to look more broadly at the market than just the patriots market. well, for example, let me remind you that saudi arabia... in february of this year , during the exhibition, signed a new contract with

south korea on 10 batteries of a new, well, not quite the same new system, but a medium-range system, as it is called, which can reliably shoot down missiles at a distance of 40 km, and such a system would take ... on itself part of the tasks, if b, for example, the european union, europe could buy off, but the main issue with the patriots and with other issues, with other systems, is that we faced a great, great egoism of the european countries, because they are now each of the countries thinking , that they need to defend themselves, and ukraine, well, let it be there, yes, it is indicative that the president... moldova was called by the leadership of the netherlands, yesterday, yes

there was this information, to transfer its batteries to ukraine, they have three batteries of patriots, and not so, really not so, vulnerable now, right now, but today and now we must to protect ukraine, i am not talking about countries like greece, yes, which are under the great influence of moscow, and they have their own batteries. they are unlikely to hand over, but let's say, the same germany of its ten batteries, well, it could hand over a couple of three, the same poland or romania, which just bought the patriot systems, could they share the queue, so to speak, become second in line, why, why is it important to prove to europe, because otherwise they themselves will have to use these systems to fight against... hostile russia, when it attacks will attack the european nato countries, of course, and

of course the purchase of patriot systems outside the european union, outside europe, it can also be, and again yesterday, yesterday's speech by the prime minister of japan, mr. kishida, in the congress of the united states of america, where he urged not to give up the leadership of the united states, and apparently he hinted that the united states could also sell to the europeans, let's say 5-10 batteries of its 60 patriot batteries, but it is indicative that this is a very bold performance by the japanese, who are now becoming, well, very they are putting a lot of pressure on ukraine, so to speak , yes, i understand that there are 24 of their own batteries there, they are unlikely to share them, primarily because of the very

powerful danger from china, which has now increased many times over, but to influence on partners, but now in the world there is such a regrouping of forces, and indeed, whichever side regroups faster, that side will have the advantage, and, as a matter of fact, all strategic matters will probably be decided. by september of the 24th year, maybe by october, and this requires, well, very dynamic changes in decision-making and in their implementation, that is, the supply of these systems, which we are talking about now, so the conclusion is shared not only by patriot, but also other systems, and the second is to persuade to transfer not only what is there somewhere... in warehouses, conditionally, storages, but to transfer what is currently in the troops with them

is worth sharing, then there is one more proposal for discussion, when russia struck gas storages, daggers, other systems, then this gave rise to such an idea, it is possible to somehow integrate the interaction of our air defense system and the defense system of poland, maybe this can be another such a step in order... to make the air defense shield over our country more powerful, what do you think about such initiatives, decisions, proposals? the idea is certainly interesting, but i do not believe that... nato will agree to such a move, because in fact, if we are talking about the use of polish patriot systems, directly from the territory of poland, then this will create a situation where in russia they will call what general mili, the former, former

chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who is still listened to, warned about. .. strongly, he said, first of all, to prevent a kinetic collision of her nato systems and her russian ones, here exactly this will happen, so to speak, a violation of this this this this situation, and de facto it will be considered that poland entered the war, surely it would be it would be much better if a certain number of systems were quickly transferred to the territory of ukraine, and then this would avoid such a threat to nato, although i am saying this from the perspective of the general panorama of the war, of course it would be much better for ukraine

solution, if it was the polish systems that started to fail, and even then we would feel it. themselves more protected, and actually speaking, they would feel that nato, well, actually supports us not only with weapons, but also with very specific actions, then the intelligence data would be added, would be added even more protection of the ukrainian sky, of course, this step would be revolutionary, but so far i do not really believe in it, as regards the strikes on our ... underground gas storage facilities and power plants, and as regards our strikes on russian refineries, about the systems that process oil, in fact , now the situation looks like a certain initial stage, and the result will depend on

who will hold this scale... i want to say that at the beginning of april, well, western analysts drew attention to the fact that that russia has begun to strike more precisely, and is using no, no, it keeps, yes, it uses very expensive high-precision ballistic missiles for such purposes, and at the same time it aims at weakly defended areas , where it had not previously... , well, there are a lot of targets for ukraine, there are already drones that fly at 1,500 km, and ukraine is also doing it, but the question now is scaling, who will have time to scale these attacks and eh, let’s

say it like this, exhaustion, exhaustion of the enemy, because there are well-founded positions that russia is also acting on the border, and the task that the kremlin is now setting concerns today, literally today, and the calculations are definitely on the swiss, on the swiss dialogue, on the fact that a serious one will begin in switzerland. talk about the freezing of the war and high hopes that participation in this particular part of china can lead to positional gains for the kremlin, this is definitely a danger for us, and therefore this political part of the war, it is extremely connected with the fact that what

is happening on the battlefield, and therefore uh... what ukraine is accelerating the scaling of high-tech means of destruction and intelligence, this certainly gives a certain impetus and certain hopes that at some stage ukraine's defense forces will be able, even without the powerful participation of the western coalition, to hold the front and to some extent destroy the russian defense potential. but the exhaustion of our infrastructure remains a really big problem, because we know that there have only been strikes since march 22 and until today. they did more damage to ukraine than the whole winter before that, yes, until the 22nd march mr. valentin, thank you very much for your

explanations, for those accents that relate to the directions of changes in our air defense system, thank you very much for your important comments, let me remind you that it was valentin badrak, director of the center for army research, conversion and disarmament, a military analyst and writer, next we will talk about where. ukraine can find patriot mirrors, we know about the initiative of britain and germany to find such mirrors for ukraine. we will talk about this in the second part of our program after advertising and information block. oh, there are no potatoes, bring them, the ass has already caught something. i remind you, have dr. tice's comfrey and... you get up to work again, comfrey ointment, german ointment for joint and muscle pain, comfrey restores movement, for joint and

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the search for the patriot air defense system, and before that, the president of ukraine and the minister of foreign affairs spoke about a certain number of sams, which is at least necessary to cover our cities from russian attacks. and now a military expert joins us. chief editor of the defense express information and consulting company, oleg katkov. mr. oleg, welcome to kanaluso. good afternoon, thank you for the invitation. i'll start with the president's statement, which sounded a few days ago, where it was said that ukraine needs at least 25 patriot systems, then the minister of foreign affairs talked about at least seven patriot air defense systems. explain. to our viewers, how many do we have now, and this is 7.25, are these significant numbers compared to what other countries in europe that have these

weapons have, in relation to the number of patriots in ukraine, then you can rely on exclusively public information that has been repeatedly announced, we are talking about the fact that ukraine received one patriot from the usa, one more from germany, and germany and the netherlands collected two, and from that we are already talking about three. but ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyi also said a few months ago that ukraine received two more air defense systems that can shoot down anything, which was not exactly the case, but the fact is that when it comes to an air defense system that can shoot down anything, this means that it can effectively counter both direct ballistic missiles and aerodynamic targets , such as aircraft, falls under this category only from the available and ... available only two complexiot, because it works effectively both against such things as iskander, and against aircraft, which has been proven many times by the so-called blocking patriot, and sumpti . ot

regarding sumpti, the fact is that during all this time, after quite long talks, italy and france were able, these two big countries were only able to allocate one complex, and therefore, and it was quite public, so it is unlikely that they would do it again once, let alone two at once, and it would certainly not be a secret, given the position and publicity of rome and paris in this matter, so most likely ukraine still has a little more than three patriot batteries and... but the question is about , which are the patriots themselves, these are very, very important questions, therefore that are objectively now in service in nato countries , including and in the world in general, two types of patriot: patriot pack 2, which uses only jam missiles, which effectively fights precisely with aircraft, high-altitude aerodynamic targets at ranges of 160 km, and there is a third pact, which has anti-missile capabilities and allows you to shoot down ballistic missiles, such as

iskander, to shoot down... that is, this is the third pact, and it can also, of course, work with anti-aircraft missiles. therefore, for now we can only say roughly that ukraine has three dash five, probably patriot systems, not all of them may be pakrets, it is 100% known about three. regarding the number of patriots in, for example, nato countries. recently , joseph borel at the summit of the forum of europe, he directly said that the western armies, that is , the western world, is nato, it is the usa, plus its european segment of nato, then we are talking about the fact that in general there are 100 batteries, batteries let me remind you, this is actually an anti-aircraft missile complex, because batteries are such an organizational staff structure, but if you take exactly how many batteries patriots, then there he is alone, which usually consists of one irl, one command post, six or eight launchers, again, this

configuration is quite vague. we are talking about a modern digital anti-aircraft missile complex, so the number of launchers can be changed, as well as usually on the smaller side, some countries cannot afford such a number of launchers in one patriot battery, there, for example, sweden, it orders only from a limited number one third or four are startups, and japan is also far from a poor country, it has five launchers per battery, but if we talk about nato countries, we are talking about 100 batteries, according to the available information. more precisely, we are talking about 95, of which 60 are directly in the usa, and 35 to 35, this is what is in europe, and these 35, they are quite conditional, because, rather, it is better to talk more about 30, because that now some countries are just in the process of receiving additional patriot systems, for example, such as sweden, such as romania, poland, and so on, let's say so.

she has a plan to increase the number of times we already have two more, two batteries of reinforced composition, and they plan to order another 12, and so on, so it is also necessary to understand that even receiving the first systems, for example, as sweden did, this does not mean that they immediately became for combat duty, usually one, one and a half or two years should be added to this time, these are the standard terms for the full combat capability of the system, when after it has been received, that's why... when we are talking about seven or 25 additional batteries for ukraine, how realistic are these figures in terms of what other countries have, or can we hope that someone will share such a number? let's hope, because there is a quite logical position here, which is broadcast by the ukrainian government, there are patriots in countries, for example, in germany, at least there may still

be... at least 10 patriots in third countries, it is still possible, a certain number of them are on what is called, warehouses, maybe in a rather dead state, because they were decommissioning them during, starting from the 2000s, that is , they were selling them off, maybe taking them out, that is , their fate is unknown, but they had, well, maybe talking about the fact that she still has about ten, so when we fill up with only 10 patriots, and we hope that she will give us seven more pieces, yes, no, we do not ... about that, because of course, i just immediately it is clear that if the entire western world has the equivalent of patriots, then 1/4 part, if we talk about 25, well, that already suggests that it cannot be easy, as well as the fact that if europe is in conditions where the usa in general not with, well, so far there are no signs that this, well, objectively , the blockade is ukraine's aid, i don't know what to call it, because it's...