Weapons are proving to be a key element in the war in Ukraine. A few weeks ago we echoed the shipments of Leopard 2 tanks that dozens of countries have decided to send to Ukraine to recover areas invaded by the Russians. yesterday, the visit of the Minister of Defense of UkraineOleksii Reznikov, made Spain aware of another important detail: our country has delivered Harpoon anti-ship missiles to kyiv.
A type of weapon that is managing to keep the Russian fleet away from the shores of the Black Sea.
A secret shipment. Although Spain had communicated the shipment of tanks and ammunition to the eastern country, it had never mentioned the provision of these anti-ship missiles. Although now everything fits. At a press conference in CongressDefense Minister Margarita Robles had spoken of the supply of “five naval systems”, which would correspond to these Harpoon AGM-84 missiles at a cost of one million dollars each.
Despite all the secrecy (the minister has said that Spain acts with discretion and does not make public everything it sends to Kiev), Spain joins the United States, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, which have also delivered units of these powerful weapons.
So that? According to the Ukrainian minister, without the weapons received it would not have been possible to force the withdrawal of the Russian fleet 200 kilometers from the coast, something that was necessary to get Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. “Their participation is ensuring that African countries receive Ukrainian grain and survive famine,” explained. And it is that these missiles, which have been in service in the frigates of the Spanish Navy for four decades, are capable of destroying ships from the air, land or sea. And thus stop the advance of the Russian naval forces.
What are the Harpoons? That is the question that everyone is asking today and we are going to try to answer it. In theory, it is a primarily anti-ship missile that features a radar active search guidance system. In practice, it is a destroyer of ships and moving targets. It has been manufactured in the US since 1977, in the past by McDonnell Douglas and now by Boeing. They weigh between 519 and 628 kilograms and measure between 3.8 and 4.6 meters, but the really important thing is that they carry a head of about 250 kg with an explosive penetrator that travels at a speed of 0.85 times the speed of sound, it is say, 281 meters per second.
As explained in this Infodefensa article, with a range up to 280 kilometers, once launched, the missile flies towards the target area and there connects its own homing sensor, locates the target and destroys it without the launcher having to act again. This allows said platform to focus on other different threats.
What impact can it have on the contest? If we take into account all the missiles of this type that Ukraine has received from various countries and the importance of having availability of weapons to defend strategic areas, quite. It must be remembered that Russia controls almost all of the Ukrainian coasts: the Sea of Azov, after taking the port city of Mariupol, and the Black Sea, next to the Crimea, where it has the maritime base of Sevastopol.
According to Hudson Institute naval expert Bryan Clark, several dozen of these missiles with a range of more than 100 km could be enough to threaten Russian ships blockading the Ukrainian coast. In fact, some analysts believe that these missiles were responsible for the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva at the beginning of the war.
Ukraine asks for more. Although the country has been grateful to Spain for sending the Harpoons, it has gone further and has spoken of the possibility of the Ukrainian military receiving training in Spain “in the field of amphibians and landings” and has indirectly raised the request for combat aircraft and anti-aircraft defense, two of the military elements that Ukraine most needs to orchestrate the recovery of territory. That would include the Spanish Eurofighters, although Defense rules out supplying them for the moment.
Those who will travel to Ukraine in the coming days will be the six Leopard 2 tanks A4 that have been rehabilitated at the Santa Bárbara Armored (SBB) plant in Seville and that will be transferred to Poland by sea to later reinforce the Ukrainian front in the war.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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