‘We have no effective defense against ballistic missiles.’ Ukraine decries Iranian missile shipment to Russia.
The Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat thinks that Russia is getting ready to deploy Iranian-made ballistic missiles near Ukraine’s northern border.
We’re going to take every defense measure against these missiles. They’ll probably be stationed to the north of Ukraine, and launched in such a way as to threaten the whole Ukraine. There’s one type of missile with a 300-kilometer range, and another with a range of 700 kilometers.
This is roughly 125 and 435 miles, respectively. “These are ballistic missiles. We have no effective defense against them,” Ignat explained, in his November 1 briefing. Shooting them down, he said, is “possible in theory but very difficult in practice.” “We have the means of air defense, but not of missile defense,” he added.
Earlier, The Washington Post reported that Iran was about to ship its Feteh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles to Russia. Their respective ranges match those stated by Ignat. Reuters has specified that the agreement on missile shipment was signed in Moscow on October 6. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Chief, Kyrylo Budanov, has also said that Russia would receive Iranian missiles in November.
The CNN reports that, according to an unnamed official source in the West, Iran will send Russia about 1,000 weapons, including 450 suicide drones and a number of short-range ballistic missiles. Both Russia and Iran deny this information and Iran’s involvement in supplying Russia with weapons for the war with Ukraine. Still, the Ukrainian military reports on shooting down Iranian drones almost daily.
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