Ukraine aiming its ATACMS rockets at Russia’s most fearsome MiG-31 interceptors

When the United States began sending fresh consignments of Army Tactical Missile System rockets to Ukraine back in April, Russian commanders knew what was coming.

After, Ukraine had gotten a small batch of around 20 ATACMS late last year—and had used the two-ton rockets—each scattering hundreds of grenade-sized submunitions—to blow up Russian helicopters and air-defence batteries at airfields near the front line, Forbes reports.

As the first of more than 100 newly-shipped ATACMS rained down last month, the Russian air force and navy began pulling many of their warplanes from bases near the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine and redeploying them to bases beyond the reach of the precision-guided ATACMS, which range between 100 and 190 miles, depending on the model.

But not all of the jets left. And Tuesday night, the Ukrainian army’s ATACMS batteries took aim—targeting Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptors and Sukhoi Su-27 fighters at Belbek air base, just outside Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, 150 miles south of the front line.

According to one popular Russian military blogger, 10 ATACMS streaked toward Belbek. Air-defense radars detected the rockets two minutes before they struck, the blogger claimed. Thousands of submunitions peppered the base, reportedly destroying a radar and two launchers belonging to an S-400 air-defence battery, damaging a MiG-31 and three Su-27s and killing seven Russian troops.

There are photos of the wrecked air-defense equipment, but not of the damaged jets, so consider the aircraft losses tentative for now. But even if the aircraft escaped major damage, the raid was still a costly one for the Russians.

The Russian air force deployed four or five S-400 batteries in Crimea before the wider war kicked off in February 2022. Between the recent ATACMS strike and previous ones, at least one of these batteries has gone up in flames, leaving gaps in Russian defences in Crimea that make subsequent Ukrainian raids easier—at least until the Russians can reorganize their air defence network.

It’s a safe bet that Ukrainian planners are hoping to eventually confirm the purported hit on the MiG-31, however. Where the Russian navy’s Su-27s are strictly medium-range air-to-air fighters, the bigger MiGs have a long-range air-to-air role, firing powerful R-37 radar-guided missiles as far as 220 miles.

The half-ton R-37 is “particularly difficult to evade,” according to the Royal United Services Institute, and has reportedly shot down several Ukrainian warplanes.

The mere presence of R-37-armed MiG-31s in Crimea has compelled Ukrainian pilots to fly low in order to avoid detection. That limits how far the Ukrainians can see with their own radars—and how far they can shoot with their own shorter-ranged missiles.

Every MiG-31 the Russians lose makes the sky over Ukraine safer for Ukrainian pilots. And so far, they’ve lost none in combat in Ukraine which anyone has confirmed.

The Russian Air Force has just a hundred or so of the twin-engine, two-seat MiG-31s and takes pains to preserve them. In April, when it became apparent that Ukraine was getting ATACMS models capable of ranging nearly 200 miles, the Russians yanked four MiG-31s from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, in southern Russia 200 miles from the front—and relocated them to Privolzhsky, 500 miles from the front.

But all of Crimea is in range of the farther-flying ATACMS. So if the Russians are going to fly around-the-clock air-defence patrols over Crimea with R-37-armed MiGs, it has few good options but to base at least a small number of MiGs on the peninsula—and risk the ATACMS.