Why Ukraine Can’t Seriously Deplete Russia’s S-400 Air Defence Arsenal: Massive Production Scale Allows For Rapid Replenishment

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have increasingly singled out components of the Russian S-400 long range surface-to-air missile system for targeting, as part of concerted efforts to cripple the backbone of the country’s air defence capabilities. Examples of successful attacks have included a November 23 ATACMS missile strike which destroyed two launchers from an S-400 system in the Russian Kursk region, and a further strike two months later which destroyed an 92N6 detection radar near the city of Belgorod, also in Kursk. More recently, an attack targeted an S-400 system in Crimea, with footage released by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence showing the destruction of two 92N2E multi-functional fire control radars, two 91N6E long range surveillance radars, and one surface-to-air missile battery. “Operations targeting air defence radars will continue,” the directorate elaborated at the time. These Ukrainian attacks have benefited from tremendous support from Western satellites, electronic intelligence from Western aircraft operating near the theatre, and the presence of Western active duty and contractor personnel who have provided significant targeting support.

Ukraine’s ability to erode Russia’s air defence capabilities has been constrained by multiple factors, among them the significant successes which Russian electronic warfare systems have had in rendering precision guided weapons such as ATACMS ballistic missiles ineffective for targeting, and the diminishing stockpiles of such weaponry due to production bottlenecks in Western Bloc states that supply them. A further primary factor limiting the prospects of Russian long range air defence capabilities being seriously compromised, however, is the success of Russian efforts to tremendously increase the S-400’s scale of production, which today far exceeds than of any comparable system fielded abroad. Although the S-400 initially proved difficult to produce and bring into service due to the extreme degree to which Russia’s defence sector had declined in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, a new program to support the S-400’s development and production through rejuvenation of the Russian missile industry was authorised by the Kremlin on August 25, 2000. This saw three major new facilities built including a new wing of the Obukhov Plant in St. Petersburg, the Avitek Plant in Kirov which was throughly modernised, and the NMP Plant in Nizhniy Novgorod. With work completed in the mid-2010s, the facilities between them contribute to a massive scale of production, allowing multiple regiments worth of S-400s to be produced annually.

Highlighting the sheer scale on which S-400s and other air defence systems are produced, Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2023 claimed during a visit to the Obukhovsky Plant that Russia’s defence sector was producing a comparable number of air defence missiles per year than the rest of the world combined. “We, for example, are making air defence missiles that you are producing three times more annually than the U.S. Our defence industry in general is annually producing air defence missiles of various purposes in approximately the same numbers as all military industrial plants of the world do. Our production is comparable with global production,” he stated. Although it remains highly questionable whether production in Russia does indeed compare to that of the rest of the world combined, with the sizeable production scales in China and North Korea in particular remaining unknown, a comfortable surpassing of NATO members’ combined production capacity is certain. Thus although Ukrainian attacks may cause serious setbacks, and frustrate Russian plans to rapidly expand the size of its long range surface-to-air missile capabilities, the possibility of them very seriously depleting Russian air defence capabilities or significantly reducing the number of S-400 systems operational in the country remains very limited. Russia’s continued exports of the system, namely to India and Belarus, and its efforts to seek new export clients, has served as one of multiple important indicators of a lack of strain on the arsenal.