Russia’s SEAD mission failure

RUSSIA/UKRAINE // RUSSIAN SEAD RUSSIA’S SEAD MISSION GOES MISSING

The Russian military has failed to conduct effective suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses (SEAD/DEAD) operations in Ukraine and has hit strike operations. Alexander Mladenov explains

Above: Russian fi ghter pilots fl ying the Su-35S with predominantly air-to-air profi ciency and only a basic air-to-surface training have been trained before the war for the SEAD mission using Kh-31P-series of anti-radar missiles Russian MoD ussia’s invasion of Ukraine,

Rlaunched in the early hours of February 24, 2022, has highlighted many defi ciencies in its air arm. The most striking among these is the lack of enough ability to conduct complex combined air operations when facing a peer enemy.

Before the invasion, the Russian Air and

Space Forces (RuASF) was considered one of the world’s premier air arms, with a signifi cant fl eet of modern, heavyweight tactical fi ghters such as the Su-30SM,

Su-35S and Su-34, with more than 200 examples gathered in theatre.

However, in real-world combat these advanced jets and their crews have so far fared unimpressively in the strike role.

Close observation of combat operations shows capability gaps in the apparent failure to achieve air superiority and eff ectively neutralize Ukraine’s substantial ground-based air defenses (GBAD) in 140-plus days of intense warfare. In fact, the air superiority was reported to have eventually been achieved to some degree in the wider Donbas and Kharkov regions where the Russian ground forces enjoy freedom of maneuver and fi ght, but as of late-July the RuASF proved still reluctant to conduct any regular deep strike operations with tactical jets to knock out strategic targets and undertake eff ective interdiction operations across Ukraine.

At the same time, there were no large packages of tactical jets, dispatched for strike operations in Ukrainian airspace at medium or high level, with dedicated fi ghter and SEAD/DEAD escorts. This could be seen as more than enough evidence to suggest that the modern-day RuASF has no serious operational capability for launching large formation strikes with integrated SEAD/DEAD escorts when facing highly survivable GBAD networks.

The deep strike role was entirely delegated to the land-, air- and sealaunched cruise missiles, complemented by a sizeable quantity of land-launched short-range ballistic missiles. However, the end eff ect from the use of this all-missile deep strike force has been questionable on a good many occasions, mostly due to the insignifi cant lethality, improper target selection and sometimes the problematic accuracy and reliability of the missiles that were used.

While the Ukrainian air defense fi ghters remained idle most of the time, the RuASF Su-35S fi ghters proved eff ective in the intercepts and long-range air combat, claiming a signifi cant number of victories,

to air missile (SAM) systems, served by skilled operators and fighting in a smart pop-out manner. This apparent lack of an effective SAM-busting ability, in turn, has had a serious adverse impact on the effectiveness of the strike operations over Ukrainian territory, which had failed to achieve degradation of the effectiveness of the country’s military and interdict the main supply routes. This substantial weakness results from both doctrinal and training deficiencies, further aggravated by incompetent leadership at the RuASF and joint forces command top levels.

Using as much trustworthy information available in the public domain, it could be concluded that the modern-day RuASF is lacking any more or less meaningful training required for conducting effective complex SEAD/DEAD operations in the manner of the US Air Force in this highstake business. The Russian air arm is also short of any effective C2 organization and capability needed for conducting such operations in an all-out war, including established command and intelligence personnel in addition to sophisticated ELINT/SIGNIT air platforms needed for conducting of large-scale stand-off intelligence-gathering operations, including localization and designation for neutralizing of the main threat radars and C2 nodes of Ukraine’s air defenses.

There were no large-scale, radar-busting operations organized in the course of the war as the RuASF has never practiced in the past any such complex and highrisk SEAD/DEAD operations in a realistic environment while facing serious GBAD threats. It cannot be expected that such operations could be ever staged at the

Above: The combined RuASF losses – suffered in medium- and low-altitude operations – have eventually led to a serious reduction in the use of strike jets to service targets on Ukrainian-held territory, especially in broad daylight. This is the remains of a Su34 bomber shot down on March 5, 2022 in Chernihiv area Ukrainian internet Below: The lack of any more or less systematic training as well as established tactics, technics and procedures for complex SEAD/DEAD operations has been tacitly acknowledged by Russian defence experts, as the use of the on-demand radarbusting operations provided by the CAP-tasked Su-35S seems to have proved insufficiently effective Russian MoD later phases of the war in Ukraine.

A possible explanation of this lack of realworld capability refers to the fact that all peacetime training in the front-line units to neutralize enemy long- and mediumrange air defenses or to avoid being engaged by SAMs had been conducted by staging non-realistic, overtly simplified and scripted scenarios with strike groups tasked to penetrate through a GBAD zone to reach their assigned targets. Likewise, training for anti-radar missile (ARM) employment had been undertaken sporadically, and in sterile environments only, with little or no realism, and without the exploration of specially designed and validated SEAD/DEAD tactics, technics and procedures.

These conclusions have also been already tacitly acknowledged by military observers and bloggers in Russia, some of them with solid operational background. They also tend to claim that the SEAD/ DEAD has not been present at all in the list of priority missions requested from the RuASF by the joint force commanders in charge of combat operations in Ukraine, who, as a rule, have land forces backgrounds. There were some sporadic strikes mounted against radars and SAM systems in the course of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine in an effort to degrade the GBAD effectiveness, but without an all-encompassing systematic approach, and the end result proved unimpressive.

Not ready and willing

Facing the challenge of suppressing the enemy air defenses and establishing air superiority over Ukraine, it is evident that the top military commanders had definitely proved not ready and willing yet to take this mission more seriously. This has rendered the RuASF poorly suited for conducting such complex and dangerous operations against a determined and war-hardened enemy, able to incur heavy losses on the attackers.

Russian defense experts tend to maintain that any serious large-scale operations to knock out Ukrainian SAMs – set to be completed in two or three days – would result in prohibitive losses,

Below: The RuASF has refrained from undertaking any deep strike operations and the same is true for the air interdiction efforts and the dedicated and systematic SEAD/ DEAD operations undertaken in the fi rst four months of war. As of mid-July, all the strike operations conducted by the RuASF tactical jets, such as this Su-34 armed with Kh-29TD TV-guided missiles and equipped with a L173V jammer pod for escort protection, were constrained to the front line and the nearrear areas to knock out tactical targets Russian MoD and this is going to be the price paid due to the shortage of proper experience and training in peacetime.

As an alternative, a slow-going and non-systematic SEAD/DEAD campaign was initiated, to seek and destroy SAMs on an occasional basis – not only by using tactical jets, but also by employing longrange artillery, large-caliber rockets (with cluster warheads) and short-range ballistic missiles, mainly in the wider Donbas and Kharkiv regions. There were also some sporadic attempts at the beginning of the operation to launch some more complex SEAD/DEAD missions involving decoys such as the Enyx E95 target drones. These actions represented an eff ort to prompt the operations of SAM systems in the depth of Ukraine’s territory to turn on their radars and fi re missiles and therefore reveal their positions for subsequent attacks with ARMs and other guided munitions. There are no reports yet how successful these missions actually were.

The list of the Russian claims for knocked-out GBAD elements in the beginning of the operation includes, for example, a S-300 engagement radar/ command post destroyed by bombs dropped from a Forpost-RU drone, on April 19 at some 30nm north of Kyiv, while in early May another S-300 system, including the engagement radar/ command post and a single launcher, was destroyed by a large-caliber multiplelaunch rocket system, using projectiles fi tted with cluster munitions warheads. As well, on March 26, the Russian MoD released video footage (fi lmed from a drone), of a direct hit on a Buk-M1 radarequipped launcher, apparently delivered by a high-power warhead and with remarkable accuracy, mostly likely related to the use of an Iskander-M tactical ballistic missile. Further video footage, also derived from a drone, released by the Russian MoD on April 1, shows what is believed to be a S-300 engagement radar/command post being destroyed by a guided artillery projectile, scoring a direct hit.

Open-source intelligence site Oryx data shows as many as fi ve S-300PT/ PS engagement radars/command post destroyed in addition to 24 launcher units for the same system and four Buk-M1 launchers (including two radar-equipped and two non-radar-equipped ones) but this could be also seen as being far from the true data, as there would be

The Kh-31PM anti-radar missile is the latest iteration of the radar-busting Krypton family, mainly used for reactive SEAD/DEAD by the Su-35S pair, tasked with combat air patrols in own airspace and mounting strikes of opportunity against popping-out Ukrainian SAM radars on the front line or in the near-rear areas Russian MoD

UKRAINE’S WEB-BASED C2 TECHNOLOGY

Ukraine’s integrated air defense system has managed to retain its operability intact after the initial Russian missile strikes in the last week of February. Its air surveillance, target tracking and target distribution capabilities continued to be maintained at a pretty high level also thanks to the force-wide fi elding of novel and aff ordable information and communication technologies to seriously enhance the C2 functionality and reach.

This is the so-called Virazh-Planshet system, a novel web-based application for online display of the recognized air picture (RAP) over the entire territory of Ukraine and the adjacent regions, using information gathered, processed, generated and distributed by the main C2 center, possibly complemented by a network of back-up C2 centers.

The RAP is generated at the C2 center by fusing target data derived from multiple sources, including a plethora of earlywarning radars of various types stationed across Ukrainian territory, complemented by information derived from the Kolchuga passive radars, the early-warning radars of the deployed SAM systems, civilian air traffi c control radars and possibly information supplied by US and NATO sources, derived from various AEW&C and ELINT/SIGINT air platforms fl ying next to Ukraine’s borders, inside Romanian and Polish airspace. The RAP distribution to various categories of end-users is then facilitated by the internet, thanks to the US-provided Starlink satellitebased service.

The mass availability of receiver terminals for the Starlink, fi elded with the Ukrainian military, has enabled each commander and air defense crew in the fi eld (down to the MANPADSequipped units) to get real-time information about the target movements in their sector of responsibility, displayed on a notebook or tablet computer. This target information includes the identifi cation friend-or-foe (IFF) status, type, altitude, speed and heading to allow the timely reaction of the SAM and MANPADS crews when a target is about to enter into their designated engagement zones.

Using targeting information derived from the Virazh-Planshet, crews of radar-guided SAM systems can sit and wait in ambush in the silent mode, until the designated for engagement targets close at a suitable distance and then turn on their missile guidance radar for a short time only, suffi cient to allow missile guidance until hitting the target. Such smart tactics enables the mobile SAM systems to remain hidden most of the time, avoiding attacks from Russian anti-radar missiles and other air-to-surface weapons, and also avoiding being detected and targeted from fi xed- or rotary-wing EW air platforms before missile launch.

a substantial number of destroyed or heavily damaged SAM systems where no visual evidences are available at this stage.

Alive and kicking

The remarkably creative air defense posture demonstrated by the Ukrainian Air Force’s (UkAF’s) GBAD units, using innovative command-and-control solutions, married to older-generation but still capable SAM systems, was further enhanced by NATO sharing, in real time, its radar picture and intelligence data.

As of mid-July, the Ukrainian GBAD was still considered a significant threat to Russian strike and reconnaissance jets, despite its outdated inventory of mobile SAM systems inherited from the Soviet era and the combat attrition sustained in some 140 days of fighting. In addition, the UkAF SAMs proved well suited on multiple occasions to engage Russian Kh-31Pseries of ARMs, launched against their positions, with the successful shootdowns attributed, for instance, to the S-300 crews.

The systems are well capable of engaging air targets flying at medium and high altitude. And although these radarguided long- and medium-range SAMs are well-known to the Russian EW specialists, there was no reliable and effective recipe found so far by the Russians in a bid to disrupt their operability by jamming the target search (early warning) and missile guidance radars.

As of mid-May, according to trustworthy sources, the Ukrainian GBAD network across the entire territory of the country operated an inventory of about 20 S-300PT/PS/V1 long-range SAM fire units (systems) plus 30 more Buk-M1 self-propelled launchers (enough for equipping ten batteries) as well as no fewer than 30 early-warning radars of various types.

Even in the wider Donbas region, where the Ukrainian-held territory measured roughly 100x100nm at the time, the surviving GBAD force – said to consist of three S-300PS/Vs and four Buk-M1 systems (or, most likely, batteries in case of the Buk-M1) – posed a serious threat to the Russian aircraft, operating at low and medium level.

Each S-300PT/PS (SA-10A/B Grumble) fire unit or system, includes in its

Right: At the beginning of war, the UkAF’s SAM Troops branch controlled three SAM regiments equipped with the 9K37 Buk-M1 (SA-11 Gadfly) highly-mobile SAM system with a total active inventory consisting of no fewer than ten fire units (serving with as many as 30 batteries), each fielding six radarequipped launchers and three transporterlauncher-reloader vehicles in addition to a search radar and a command post Ukrspetstechnika

Below: This Ukrainian Air Force Buk-M1 radarequipped launcher unit was destroyed while transported on a trailer, taking hits from 80mm rockets fired by a Russian Army Aviation Mi24P attack helicopter in Poltava region Ukrainian internet

minimum wartime configuration an engagement radar/command post vehicle, one command post and one or two self-propelled four-round missile launchers to ensure high mobility (in peacetime the number of launchers could be up to 12), and could be complemented by one or two target search radars.

The highly mobile S-300V1 (SA-12 Gladiator) force is grouped in a single brigade with one or two operational fire units, fielding a total of six to eight batteries. Each battery is provided with its own target search radar, engagement radar, command post and two to four selfpropelled launchers (up to 12 launchers can be deployed in the peacetime).

There is still little-clarity, however, about what is the real composition of the systems of the active Buk-M1 force as each self-propelled launcher equipped with a target illumination radar is considered a self-sufficient combat unit, capable of single-target engagement, including target search, lock-on and tracking/missile guidance. In peacetime, a complete Buk-M1 system, capable of engaging up to six targets simultaneously, consists of a command post, a target search radar and up to nine launchers (grouped in three batteries), including six radar-equipped ones.

In general, the Buk-M1 proved to be a more flexible, capable and die-hard threat for the Russian combat jets than the S-300PT/PS/V1, as even a single radarequipped and highly mobile launcher unit (carrying up to four missiles) can operate in the so-called stand-alone mode (so without receiving targeting from the system’s command post), and is therefore very difficult to locate and engage. Even in the stand-alone operating mode, its crew enjoys an excellent situational awareness thanks to the external targeting information received in real-time from the Virazh-Planshet web-based C2 system. When in the stand-alone mode, the Buk-M1 launcher unit can pop out to illuminate with its radar the designated for engagement air target and guide its missiles on it. Using skilled operators, the engagement cycle could be very short and then the launcher could immediately change its position in a bid to avoid retaliatory strikes.

In turn, the much less mobile S-300PS SAM system relies on a truck-installed engagement radar (NATO Flap Lid), integrated with a command post on the wheeled vehicle chassis and separate missile launchers on wheeled chassis, with the system advertised as capable of simultaneously engaging up to six targets with 12 missiles at up to 40.5mn range and 82,000ft altitude.

The more mobile and flexible S-300V1 system, installed on tracked chassis, can counter air targets at up to 40.5nm distance, while tactical ballistic missiles can be engaged at up to 13.5nm.

Russian sources tend to claim that both the Ukrainian S-300PT/PS/V1 and Buk-M1 systems are not used, on most occasions, for defending objects with strategic importance and instead their main method of combat use is a more fluid one, calling for hunting for Russian aircraft, staging ambushes at various locations across the country – this is especially used in the frontline areas in Donbas and around Kharkiv and Kherson. This fluid tactics calls for engagements of Russian strike aircraft mostly on their way back (i.e. after delivering their strikes) or for engaging targets of opportunity, with as short as possible engagement cycles.

Above top to bottom: At the beginning of war, the total inventory of earlywarning radars of various types in Ukraine numbered some 200 units, and by late May about 30 of these are claimed to have remained in active operation. This the Malakhit, a highlymobile VHF radar set with low-altitude detection capability Ukrspetstechnika Major Viktor Dudin was the first RuASf pilot credited with a destroyed Buk-M1 radar-equipped launcher vehicle, using a Kh-31P-series ARM unleashed from low-altitude in a high-risk, close-in attack pass. The Su-35S is the most modern tactical jet rushed in combat by the Russian air arm, employed in both the air superiority and suppression of the enemy air defenses roles, using Kh-31P/ PD/PM ARMs for the latter Russian MoD

The Su-35S’ secondary mission

The first SEAD/DEAD sorties in the war were flown in the early hours of February 24, with Su-34s and Su-35s tasked to attack pre-planned radar targets with Kh-31P/PD/PM (NATO AS-17 Krypton) high-speed ARMs, while known positions of early-warning radars and SAMs were pounded with cruise and short-range ballistic missiles. In total, 36 SAM sites

Firing ARMs during these combined combat air patrol missions is undertaken only after receiving authorization from a ground-based C2 post, a procedure set to make sure that the position of the popped-out SAM radar is not within the disposition of the own forces. The launch authorization procedure, however, is considered as being a protracted one and often proves inadequate when facing time-sensitive radar targets.

The Russian MoD released at least one official claim for an UkAF Buk-M1 SAM guidance radar destroyed by employing this otherwise high-risk tactics. The successful ARM attack happened on February 26, mounted by Major Viktor Dudin, a Su-35S pilot from the 23rd IAP, a fighter regiment stationed at Dzemgi near Komsomolsk on Amur in Russia’s Far East region. While on a CAP mission, Major Dudin got an order to close in on a Buk-M1 (known to have been operating in the area) that was illuminating and tracking his aircraft, so he could unleash a Kh-31PM on it. He undertook the successful attack at low altitude, with its aircraft also acting as a bait, and when the radar popped out, Major Dudin fired the missile from 1,300ft altitude, claiming to had scored a good hit

There is no reliable data on the number of successful Kh-31P/PD/PM launches in the war, most of which are believed to have been mounted against radar targets of opportunity. Such strikes could be effective only in conditions when SAM operators lack any experience and tend to fail to turn off their radars, thus enabling reliable targeting with ARMs in a somewhat protracted engagement cycle. Such unprofessional behavior by SAM operators, however, is believed to be the exception rather than common occurrence in the war, as the brief target illumination to achieve as fast as possible engagement, is among the main prerequisites for survival in the face of Russian reactive SEAD/DEAD patrols.

Below: The lack of dedicated SEAD/DEAD operations eventually led to a sharp reduction in the overall lethality of the RuASF strike operations and a serious increase in the losses suffered in both medium- and low-level sorties. This is the remains of a Su-35S shot down on April 3, 2022 near Chernihiv Ukrainian internet