Ukraine’s air defense effectiveness against ballistic missiles drops to 6%: Romanenko points to key factor

The enemy has introduced software modifications to its ballistic missiles—including variants of the «Iskander-M» and «Kinzhal» types—that enable maneuvers during the terminal phase of their flight path. This has substantially complicated tracking and interception efforts, even for advanced Western systems.

Retired Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, founder of the «Close the Skies over Ukraine» Charitable Foundation, discussed this during a broadcast on Kyiv24 television.

«They modified them, adjusted the software on these missiles. And that allowed for corrections at the final stage of targeting toward our objectives,» he said.

He reported a sharp drop in the effectiveness of Ukraine’s air defense in countering ballistic missiles.

According to his data, there has been a significant decline in air defense performance: the rate of intercepting ballistic missiles has fallen from around 42% to roughly 6%.

«Based on open-source data that I used, I’m talking about the effectiveness dropping from 42% to 6%. We remember strikes on Kyiv, for example, when we were downing virtually all ballistic targets. And Putin, because they promised him these Iskander missiles would be „invincible,“ threw the developers in jail,» Romanenko said.

Ihor Romanenko stressed the urgent need to study these enemy modifications and adapt countermeasures. He also noted that Ukraine had already forwarded the compiled statistics and intelligence to manufacturers of air defense systems for potential software adjustments.