Henrik Holdmann: Russia has still not achieved air sovereignty in Ukraine. Why not?
Gernot Kramper: This is a demystification of the Russian military machine. It definitely should have happened. There are various reasons for this. One of the reasons I suspect, I suspect, is that the Ukrainians have anticipated this and are simply holding back part of their air force and air defense force. It’s like this: A heavy anti-aircraft battery can block the airspace, but then it reveals itself solely through its radar signature and can be fought. But if I hold them back and hide them in a machine hall, then the Russians can’t really get hold of them at that moment – and can become active again at any time. So I suspect that part of the air force was simply not deployed at the airports, but was held back and is now only active in individual situations, like a raid. That makes things relatively difficult for the Russians. And on top of that, the West has been supplying anti-air missiles on a very large scale. There was also talk of these old NVA weapons that we want to deliver. But a lot of modern anti-aircraft missiles have also arrived. The British now want to deliver a very modern system again. And that’s definitely affecting the Russians. Because these are not a panacea, but the systems prevent absolute air dominance because they always endanger the area below 3000 meters and Russia cannot turn off these thousands of missiles. They will always be in the country somehow. Even if there are great Russian successes or victories, it’s not like there are some central systems that can be switched off, they can be anywhere, they can be hidden in every basement. And they came to Ukraine by the thousands. That means Russia will continue to have this problem.
Henrik Holdman: The Ukraine currently still has drones in the air and can also use them to record successes and disable Russian military equipment. Is that part of air sovereignty?
Gernot Kramper: This is without question part of it, because it flies. Yes, one might have to differentiate. One is small observation drones, you will never be able to turn them off, because at the end of the day you can use any amateur photographer drone for military purposes these days and Ukraine will do that. And it would also be very good for Ukraine if the West simply sent large-scale industrial drones, agricultural drones and photographer drones, even if these are not actually military devices. However, these are actually devices that do not actually start an attack, but rather observe. Of course, an agricultural drone could also drop a bomb. But these are special cases. Ukraine continues to get Turkish combat drones into the air with which to launch attacks. At least what the videos say. The videos are authentic, but of course they can’t really be chronologically classified. No one can now judge whether a video that has now been published might not have come from last week. But that means Ukraine gets those drones up and the Russians don’t get them shot down regularly.