The US has authorised US air defence to strike aircraft in Russian skies, but there is a nuance, – expert comment
20 June 2024 17:33
ЕКСКЛЮЗИВ
The United States has officially stated that Ukraine can use the air defence system it has been provided with to attack Russian aircraft located in Russia. This was announced by US National Security Advisor Jacob Sullivan in an interview with PBS, reports "Komersant Ukrainian".
Answering a journalist’s question about how Ukraine can win without striking at Russian territory, Sullivan explained that the US allows the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack Russian troops in the areas from which they fire artillery and other ground munitions at Ukraine.
And Ukraine, he said, can use US air defence to strike aircraft in Russian airspace.
“Even if these Russian planes are in Russian airspace, [they can be shot at – ed,
– sullivan said.
According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have used this practice before.
In an exclusive comment to Kommersant Ukrainian 
, military expert Pavlo Narozhny recalled the incident in May last year, when two Russian planes (Su-34 and Su-35) and three helicopters were shot down in the Bryansk region of Russia within one day.
“It was such an ‘unfortunate’ incident that these 5 vessels were shot down. Moreover, they were shot down by an unknown missile that hit the cockpit directly, and all the pilots were killed. After that [in November 2023 – ed.], our air force published photos of the Ukrainian Patriot, which showed the downed systems. And on one of those days, you can clearly see two planes and three helicopters. There are no other coincidences of 2 planes and 3 helicopters being shot down on the same day. So this indirectly proves that such incidents happened,”
– says the expert.
Sullivan’s wording, however, does not make it entirely clear whether the strikes on aircraft cover the entire Russian airspace (after all, aircraft can launch missiles even from the Caspian Sea) or only the border areas. Narozhnyi believes that Ukraine can now strike essentially wherever it can reach, because the “American air defence” is Patriot, whose range does not allow for deep strikes.
“The range of the Patriot system is 160 km at best. It is clear that the launcher cannot be directly on the contact line – it will be 40-50 km away. We get a range of 110-120 km [into the depths of Russia] from the contact line, where Patriot can theoretically reach a Russian plane or helicopter. Therefore, we are talking exclusively about border areas,”
– commented Pavlo Narozhnyi.
