Ukraine and the United States have created a hybrid air defence system that combines advanced Western-style surface-to-air missiles with modernised Soviet-era launchers or radars, The New York Times reported.
"With winter approaching, Ukrainian officials are desperate for more air defences to protect their power grids from Russian strikes that could plunge the country into freezing darkness," it said. "So desperate, in fact, that they are willing to experiment with a monster of a weapons system that was the brainchild of Ukraine and is now being pursued by the Pentagon."
American officials call it the FrankenSAM program, combining advanced, Western-calibre, surface-to-air missiles with refitted Soviet-era launchers or radars that Ukrainian forces already have on hand. Two variants of these improvised air defences — one pairing Soviet Buk launchers and American Sea Sparrow missiles, the other marrying Soviet-era radars and American Sidewinder missiles — have been tested over the past several months on military bases in the United States and are set to be delivered to Ukraine this fall, officials said.
A third, the Cold War-era Hawk missile system, was displayed on Ukraine’s battlefield this week for the first time, in an example of what Laura K. Cooper, a senior U.S. defence official, had described this month as a FrankenSAM “in terms of resurrection” — an air defence relic brought back to life.
Together, the FrankenSAMs are “contributing to filling critical gaps in Ukraine’s air defences, and this is the most important challenge that Ukraine faces today,” said Ms. Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy.