tal , (edited )
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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a post on Telegram, said Russia had used more than 800 glide bombs on Ukrainian targets in the past week. He issued a fresh plea in his nightly video address for better weapons systems. “The sooner the world helps us deal with the Russian combat aircraft launching these bombs, the sooner we can strike – justifiably strike – Russian military infrastructure … and the closer we will be to peace,” he said.

Well, I don't know what kind of counter he's aiming for. There are basically two that I can think of:

Long-range SAMs with sufficient range (and maybe mobility) to strike an aircraft launching glide bombs without being placed at risk. Ukraine's has had some old long-range Warsaw Pact SAMs, but I don't think that we've got more stores or production capacity. There are Patriots, but those are the only anti-ballistic-missile counter Ukraine presently has; using them as a counter for aircraft will cut into that. I suggested earlier that the SAMP/T systems that France sent, firing Aster missiles -- which theoretically have an ABM capability, but at least earlier in the conflict, apparently weren't intercepting them -- might work, if the range is long enough.

Aircraft armed with long-range air-to-air missiles.

Russia's newest glide bombs, according to this article, probably reach about 90 km.

To use it to directly support the front, that's about how close they're going to have to get. Maybe closer if they want to strike behind the front.

The US has the AIM-120. The latest version reaches 160–180 km according to WP. We have other long-range air-to-air missiles in development, but not in production today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Range_Engagement_Weapon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-260_JATM

Europe has the Meteor:

Maximum range: 200 km (110 nmi)+[4]
No Escape Zone: 60 km (32 nmi)+[5]

A Ukrainian aircraft firing those will need to do so at high altitude to leverage high range, use the aircraft's fuel rather than the missile's. That height will make it visible to Russian air defense, and the aircraft has to avoid getting hit by Russian SAMs.

The longest-range SAM that I'm aware of that Russia has is an S-400 variant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

That can reach out 400 km with the right missile according to WP.

Now, there are a number of ways one might measure range (from what height? Are these "minimum maximum" ranges or the actual limit? Is this a no-escape range or the furthest the missile can travel? What altitude can it reach at that point?) So I can't say "this is the range that Ukraine's going to need" exactly. But if Russia can legitimately reach out about twice as far as any air-to-air missile, it seems to me that that's going to be a problem for air-to-air missile use unless countermeasures or stealth or similar can prevent Russia from making use of SAMs.

Ukraine has been hitting S-400s with ATACMS, so those are, in turn, under threat.

EDIT: Another twist is that Russia also has long-range air-to-air missiles, and any Ukrainian aircraft trying to hit a Russian attack aircraft with an air-to-air missile is going to have to worry about those coming back the other direction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-37_(missile)

150–400 km (93–249 mi) [1] Up to 200 kilometres (120 mi) (RVV-BD)

Given that the longest-range variant there can reach out 400 km, that's a pretty big buffer for Russia to work with. I believe that those missiles are intended more for hitting "large" aircraft, like bombers or the like, so a fighter might be a little better off, but I'd assume that something like an F-16 remains vulnerable.

In a "Russia versus NATO" scenario, there are stealthy F-35s that that missile probably won't do much good against. But Ukraine's not using stealthy aircraft.

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