Screengrab/Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine
- Russia could be forced to sacrifice air defenses at its borders, UK intelligence said.
- Losses in Ukraine mean that key air defense weapons will likely need to be redeployed, it said.
- Russia's air defense systems have become a key target for Ukrainian missiles and drones.
Russia may need to sacrifice air defenses protecting its borders to help cover gaps in the front lines in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update on Thursday.
Last week, Russia lost three S-400 Triumf missile systems in the Luhansk region, weakening its air defenses there, the MOD said.
To make up for those losses, Russia will "highly likely" be forced to divert surface-to-air missile systems, or SAM, from "distant parts" of Russia to the front lines in Ukraine, leaving its borders vulnerable, per the UK MOD.
The British ministry added that Russia's struggle to keep its air defenses in place is proof the war is overstretching its military.
"The reallocation of strategic air defense assets would further demonstrate how the Ukraine conflict continues to overextend Russia's military and strains its ability to retain baseline defenses across its vast area," it said.
Since August, Russia has suffered several notable losses of its highly-prized S-400 "Triumf" air-defense systems, with Ukraine targeting the weapons with a combination of missiles and drones.
In September, Ukraine's security service and its navy destroyed an S-400 worth more than $500 million in a joint operation in occupied Crimea, the BBC and Reuters reported at the time, citing Ukrainian intelligence sources.
And in August, Ukraine struck a Russian S-400 air-defense system with a Neptune missile near Olenivka, Crimea.
Russia's air defenses have proven so vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks that military analysts from the Institute for the Study of War said that they may have "systemic tactical failures."
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, made a similar assessment in an interview with The Drive in September, saying that Ukrainian attacks show "the obvious inability of Russian air defense systems."