Ukraine To Develop New Air Defense Missile System

Ukraine has approved a program to develop new air defense system, including a new medium-range missile.

This new Ukrainian air defense system will strengthen the capacity of Ukrainian armed forces to protect its airspace, Army Recognition reported Last week.

Under the name of "Dnipro", this new air defense system will be able to detect aircraft up to a range of 150 km.

This new surface-to-air missile will have the capacity to destroy aircraft but also all types of helicopters, drones and cruise missiles at medium and short distances.

The new air defense system DNIPRO has all-weather capability during day and night. The system provides a detection range of more than 150 km and coverage to an altitude up to 7,000m. It can destroy aerial targets from a distance of 15 m to 25 km. The system can be deployed and prepared for firing in less than four minutes.

The surveillance control centre includes a surveillance radar used phased-array antenna technology which creates a beam of radio waves which can be electronically steered to point in different directions, without moving the antennas. The radar is mounted on a 6x6 military truck chassis.

According a drawing released on a Ukrainian internet website, the mobile launch unit will be fitted with four missile silos ready to fire mounted to the back of a trailer.

The missile control center is linked by cable or by radio data communications to the surveillance control centre to coordinate all information about the target. The DNIPRO air defense missile system can simultaneously engage up to 6 air targets with 12 missiles.