By Alexander Kovalenko

"During the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 745 units of air defense systems of small, medium, and large range, either destroyed, damaged, or captured. Primarily, of course, these losses were of small and medium-range systems.

Moreover, Russian Armed Forces air defense assets in the conflict zone are regularly and systematically destroyed, by dozens each month. For instance, in March 2024, 53 units were destroyed. Naturally, these losses need to be compensated for in the conflict zone. However, air defense systems is not like tanks, armored personnel carriers, or artillery. Their production is a lengthy process, and even repairs require significant time and energy resources.

Thus, the Russian military-industrial complex  is unable to fully compensate for air defense losses through production or even restoration after removal from storage. This is the only category where the Russian military-industrial complex couldn't compensate for losses from the first days of the war through production or by activating storage facilities.

How did they compensate for losses in the conflict zone? They took operational systems from the territory of Russia and continue to do so. In other words, after losing 53 air defense systems in March, they didn't produce them to compensate but took them from certain regions of Russia. And so on.

As a result, numerous gaps have emerged across Russia's air defense system, which was already not fully covering the airspace. But the main concern is that the situation is not improving. With each passing day, week, and month, Russia's air defense becomes weaker, the gaps widen, and the nominally closed zone shrinks.

While Russia might be able to compensate for losses of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery for at least another year or two, the situation with air defense is becoming increasingly critical for them."