because it can shoot down enemy aircraft. it also can take down the missiles that have been coming in. i ll dig into that later. essential here is ukraine forces do not need training because they already have been using these. they have about 300 of them so far. according to forbes, ukraine had 300 of the older versions when the war began. they have since lost at least 21. i m going to show you, here s russian satellite imagery. it s claiming to show one at least destroyed launcher in this picture. again, a russian defense minstraer picture. this is one of them here. you ll notice there are four tubes because there are so many different variations, it means it could potentially have launched four different missiles at very short amount of time. you can see it on the left-hand side, what appears to be another destroyed one in the picture and one down here as well. again, from russian defense minstraer. this is the concern, they re losing their air defense capability in ukraine. the news
one of the key things ukrainians need and they know this is an integrated air defense capability that either eliminates or really degrades the russian s capability to use that third dimension where they can put an attack helicopter and put fighters. with an integrated air defense system which gives them long-range capabilities, very pronounced radar capabilities, detection capabilities and then the stingers, the shoulder fire weapons systems that are more tactical, it gives ukrainians a more integrated system. where are they needed most in the country, in the east no doubt, but where specifically are they needed the most. specifically in the east. you need to look at what the ukrainians did about a week ago or so is where they did that long-range attack helicopter raid into russia and went after that oil depot.
it seems like there s been many times they say they ve been intercepting missiles and i m curious what kind of technology they re using. well, that s an interesting question, brianna, because we don t know everything the ukrainians have, but it sounds consistent with something they d have in the s300. now so far, we ve been told they haven t gotten any replenishments for their air defense capability from places like slovakia, but that may not be true anymore. it may be possible that they have something like an s300 ready to go and in operation over zaporizhzhia or perhaps other areas that could intercept cruise missiles and frankly, get a lucky shot every now and then. it s very interesting and makes you wonder what they have here on the ground. the eu s top diplomat said a
that, please, let me know. obviously, it s militarily significant and important that there be airports, because you greatest have a massive air defense capability. crippling it would be substantial. erin, stay safe, i want to go to kharkiv, in northeastern ukraine matt bradley is there, it s ten minutes to eight in the morning. matt, what is a situation where you are? ali, we re starting to hear some first rumblings of sounds of a ground invasion that s actually coming over the border from the north, where i ham, near where i am in a car cave, we heard this from the ministry of internal affairs and the border patrol people saying that troops are coming over the border. they re engaging the military in the national guard, north of where i am in kharkiv, and in sue me, which is a little bit northwest of where i am, there about 25 miles from the border and
considering sending air defense equipment to those countries on nato s eastern flank, those nato allies. because the airspace is so close, the concern, the russians have already fired some 600 or more missiles of various categories, many of them ballistic missiles. if any of those missiles go astray across the border into a nato country or if the russians calculate they want to strike inside nato, there needs to be some additional kind of air defense capability. some kind of system that could potentially shoot those missiles down. so they re looking, obviously, at things like the patriot missile. this is something the u.s. has relied on successfully for many years and it could be one of the next weapon systems to go into eastern europe if a decision is made. kate? barbara, thank you so much. great reporting. really appreciate it. secretary of state tony blinken is in eastern europe this morning with a message of unwavering support from the united states in face of a