The Russian military has destroyed a Norwegian-American NASAMS air defense system of Kiev forces for the first time since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, announced on February 3. The spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said that the system was targeted near the settlement of Krasnoarmeisk in the Donetsk People’s Republic, without clarifying when or how exactly it was destroyed.
Ukrainian air defenses are usually targeted with anti-radar missiles, cruise missiles or loitering munitions, commonely known as suicide drones.
The NASAMS, which was developed by Norwegian Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and American Raytheon in the 1980s, was designed to defend against drones, helicopters, cruise missiles and warplanes. The system was first fielded by Norway in the 1990s.
The first and second generation of the air-defense system are armed with the AIM-120 AMRAAM, which is designed for air-to-air engagement.
Although the air-to-air range for AMRAAM is estimated to be 75 kilometers for AIM-120B and over 160 kilometers for the latest AIM-120D, these ranges are estimated for head-on encounters by fast moving aircraft at an altitude. The range is reduced to just 30 kilometers when the AMRAAM is launched from the ground.
The third generation of the NASAMS is armed with a variant of the AMRAAM that was especially developed for ground launch, the AMRAAM ER. This version has a range of more than 40 kilometers.
The NASAMS system is built around the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel X-band, pulse-Doppler radar, which has a maximum range of 40 to 120 kilometers depending on the version.
After the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, the United States pledged to arm Kiev forces with eight NASAMS systems. They were a part of two military aid packages announced in July and August, with the first including two systems and the second six more. A ninth system was also promised by Canada in January.
The first NASAMS system was supplied to Ukraine in November. It was reportedly deployed in the outskirts of the capital, Kiev.
Ukraine has apparently begun to move Western-supplied air defense systems, like the NASAMS, to the front to make up for its losses in Soviet-made systems. This will put these costly systems within the reach of Russia’s precision short-range fire means.