US supplied missiles used to attack Russian SAM sites

 Telegraph:

When Ukraine said earlier this month that it had destroyed four Russian S-300 air-defence systems and a radar station, military analysts were stunned.

These surface-to-air missile systems (SAM) are very sophisticated and deadly pieces of equipment. Their loss will be felt keenly in Moscow and experts have been left scrambling to explain how forces in the south of the country caused such destruction.

The mystery may have been answered earlier this week, when US officials said they had supplied high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARM) to Ukraine.

Little has been heard of this class of weapons so far in the war.

That may be about to change, given they will likely play a central role in any Ukrainian counter-attack in the south.
Like something from sci-fi

Anti-radiation missiles sound like something from science fiction; the response to a nuclear blast perhaps, used to shield civilians from atomic Armageddon.

Alas, rockets such as the AGM-88 – thought to be the weapon supplied by the US – do not work against that kind of radiation.

Instead they are designed to hone in on the radiated signals of ground-based SAM systems, searching the sky for incoming fighters.

Left intact, SAM systems deny a force air superiority and make it harder to attack other ground targets such as headquarters, airfields and ammunition depots. Destroying such sites, therefore, is a critical task in a military campaign and is called suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD).

Ukraine wants to turn recent small counter-attacks around Kherson into a broader counter-offensive to take back swathes of territory and perhaps threaten Russia’s hold on Crimea.

To be successful, Kyiv’s forces will need to own the skies, at least temporarily, so as to provide intimate support to colleagues on the ground pushing forwards.

For jets to operate unmolested, the SAM threat will first need to be removed, or at least reduced, which is where HARM missiles, travelling at around 2,300km an hour and therefore very difficult to shoot down, come in.
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This is another way US weapon systems are demonstrating their superiority over Russian military equipment.  It also shows the Russians what they would have to deal with in a conflict with the US.  The technology differences are really being exposed.

See, also:

Russia, Belarus military bases rocked by fire, explosions days after Crimea air base sees destructive blasts