Ukraine creates its own "Iron Dome": what is known about the new air defence system

Ukraine is creating its own "Iron Dome" - an air defence system that is similar in principle to the Israeli model, but will be significantly larger in scale.

This was announced by Deputy Commander of the Air Force Pavlo Yelizarov.

According to him, Ukraine's territory is so large that Israel's Iron Dome would look like a "small spot" against its backdrop.

Yelizarov explained that it is impossible to completely cover Ukraine with expensive Patriot or IRIS-T systems, either physically or financially.

That is why, according to him, the Ukrainian Iron Dome has become a conceptual solution to this problem.

He stressed that work on the implementation of this project is already actively underway.

The Deputy Commander of the Air Force also described the current situation with protecting the sky from attack drones.

According to him, the most trained brigades are stationed in border regions and near the front line, destroying up to 50% of enemy drones.

However, due to the large number of launches, a significant portion of the drones still break through deep into the country.

Yelizarov noted that inside Ukraine, the Shahed drones fly not in small groups, but in fact in "flocks".

He compared it to "wild boars running through the forest and destroying everything in their path."

According to him, it is impossible to evenly distribute a large number of drone crews throughout the country due to its large territory.

He added that even if the crews were deployed in three rows and 15 Shaheds flew simultaneously, they would still not be able to cope completely, and some of the targets would break through.

That is why, as Yelizarov explained, the tactics for combating air targets must be different.

According to him, such tactics have already been developed, and they involve creating a "dome" to neutralise enemy air targets.

He also stressed that the Ukrainian solution will differ from the Israeli one.

According to him, the Israeli version can be saturated with expensive missiles, but the Ukrainian scale does not allow the same to be done with missiles such as those used for Patriot.

Yelizarov stated that Ukraine has already approved its own solution and work in this direction is continuing.

Against this backdrop, he also mentioned general problems with Ukrainian air defence.

Earlier it was reported that the war in Iran complicates Ukraine's hopes for further supplies of missiles to Patriot, as the US and its allies are spending significant stocks of air defence interceptors in the Middle East.

According to European officials, the use of expensive American missiles in this region could reduce future supplies to Kyiv.

The EU also reported that Ukraine had used 700 Patriot missiles over the winter.

European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius noted that this amount roughly corresponds to the annual production volume of American companies.