Why is an air-raid siren sometimes sounded after explosions? An adviser to the Minister of Defence explained the specifics of ballistic attacks
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Defence with the call sign ‘Flash’, explained the reasons for this.
According to him, Ukraine receives information about ballistic missile launches from foreign partners. The main sources of data are satellite surveillance and a launch detection system. The adviser added that the flight time of a ballistic missile to Kyiv is 2–4 minutes.
“Any system failure will lead to a delay in receiving information. No system can be perfect, so failures do occur, and the alarm may be delayed,” he wrote.
On 11 July, Russia attacked Kyiv with ballistic missiles — on that occasion, too, the alarm sounded only after civilian infrastructure in the city had already been hit, wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
At the same time, there are instances where the system warns of a ballistic threat, yet no missiles are detected in the airspace, says Beskrestnov. According to him, this happens because satellites detect activity at launch sites prior to the launch of missiles.
As an example, Serhiy Beskrestnov cited the situation with ‘Oreshnik’: reconnaissance satellites repeatedly detected activity at the launch sites, yet no actual launches took place.
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