Illustrative image. Source: the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
A Ukrainian Buk-M1 air-defense system has been destroyed by a Russian airstrike on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, announced on December 11.
“Near the Kramatorsk settlement of the Donetsk People’s Republic a position has been disclosed and the launch platform of the Ukrainian Buk-M1 ground-to-air missile system has been eliminated,” he told a briefing focused on the special military operation.
The Buk is a family of self-propelled, medium-range air-defense systems designed to counter cruise missiles, smart bombs, fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.
The original Buk-M1 variant, which was developed in the Soviet Union, has an engagement range of 35 kilometers and an altitude of 22 kilometers.
The Ukrainian military inherited some 70 Buk-M1 systems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some of the systems were modernized to the Buk-M1-2 standard before the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. This version has an engagement range of 42 kilometers and a top altitude of 25 kilometers.
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The fighter jets of the Russian Aerospace Forces have been hunting down Ukrainian air defenses, including Buk-M1 systems, with anti-radiation missiles, mainly the Kh-31PD/PK which has a range of 110-160 kilometers.
NATO states are currently working to replace Ukraine’s soviet air defenses with Western-made systems. In the last few weeks, the Ukrainian military received German-made IRIS-T SLM, Norwegian-made NASAMS, American-made MIM-23 Hawk, Italian-made Aspide 2000 and French-made Crotale NG air defense-systems.
The new systems didn’t present any new challenge to the Russian military, who is still carrying out aerial operations and missile attacks in Ukraine with much freedom.
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