Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military on Friday launched what’s been called the largest aerial attack of the Ukraine war, and one economic-focused Ukrainian outlet estimated the cost of the assault for Russia to be at least $1.273 billion.
The figure was calculated by Ekonomichna Pravda (Economic Truth), which tallied the prices of the drones and missiles the Ukrainian Air Force reported Russia used during the massive assault.
The Associated Press (AP), citing Ukrainian officials, said at least 30 civilians were killed in the strikes that took place across the country—including on the capital Kyiv—and at least 144 people were wounded. The AP reported Russia used 122 missiles and dozens of drones in what was a bombardment that lasted around 18 hours. Officials said a maternity hospital, schools and residential apartments were among the structures damaged.
It’s still a wonder. 174 people dead or injured, if even underreported, means less than two hurt by one missile that alone can level a multi-level apartment complex. That means their air defence, even with that unprecendented intensity, knows their shit and downs most incoming missiles in the open field before it’s too late. The only problem is if they have enough munition to keep that going. That’s on EU, US and others to provide. There can’t be a 100% success rate, but if they didn’t do their job at all, there could be thousands of victims like in Gaza that doesn’t have any defences at all. None of these victims should have experience that, but for comparing no defence and an active work in that direction, you can see not only lives saved, but effective, deserved investments other countries are slow to provide. If not in attacking ammunition for some reason, but in defensive one, those get exhausted in these major attacks like a popcorn and need the according temp of replacement. Letting them defend their people and critical infrastructure is a universally a good thing. And they’ve shown they can work with it alright.
How costly is the air defence in comparison to the cost of the attack?
It really depends. I’m on the go so I can’t dig deep, but news reports keep saying Russians used cruise missiles.
A Russian Kh-101 costs about $18 million USD. A Kalibr is somewhere between $1 and $6.5 million USD (sources are a bit muddy and I think the high end is more like the export price).
There is a wide variety of air defense systems from many countries in Ukraine, but for example a single Patriot missile, a long range defense for shooting down cruise missiles costs about $4 million USD for the US. The cost of the launcher is about $1 billion (with a b) for the US. In this case you can see the missile is, relatively speaking, cheap compared to the whole system.
Keep in mind there is a ton of variation. Russia allegedly also launched drones, and a drone is a pretty wide category of size and price.
Patriots are expensive, an IRIS-T costs about 350k Euro, SL variant 500k (the air defence system can use both using quite cheap launchers but the base variant has quite limited range when launched from the ground, being an air-to-air missile and all). And they have yet to miss an incoming missile.
The ideal situation is if they can take something down with a Gepard, a burst should cost maybe 100-200 Euro and you usually only need one or two, they’re quite accurate.
No expert, but I remember that systems to defend themselves are wery expensive, since they have many elements to cover a perimeter, but the rockets themselves are not as much as those targeting you. If they can keep new systems safe and just consume shots, it seems cost effective to those rockets trying to breach the dome. I’d like for some weapon geek to correct me.
I think you’ve got the basic shape of it for long range air defense, although a Russian Kalibr missile can be cheap when talking about guided missile prices, so there are exceptions. I think, on average, a cruise missile will be more expensive than a defensive missile.
More than focusing on the dollar amount, looking at the capability loss intrigues me more. Cruise missiles are offensive, and take longer than dumb weapons to build, especially for Russia due to shortages of tech resources. Wasting them on essentially a giant terror attack with no follow through is just burning resources. Where were these missiles when Russia was sending infantry waves into Avdiivka?
On the flip side, air defense missiles are only defensive. Sure, using them to defend from this missile wave depletes future ability to use them, but they were depleted while doing exactly what they were built to do.
My understanding is that attacks like this force deployment of air defences to population centers rather than protecting military targets. So no direct military benefit, but it can help shape the battlefield.
It’s absolutely possible. I don’t have have up to the minute reports, and I don’t think anybody in the west has access to the thoughts of Russian military leadership.
My impression though is that it is a quite uneven military trade to put so many resources into an attack like this just to divert protection away from the frontlines, and then not really leverage that by hitting the lines. Maybe it’s coming later after goading Ukraine into permanently sending resources to civilian areas. I do not know.
I have suspicions on what else it may be, but it is mere wild speculation.