Dolintse explained why Ukraine did not receive a warning about a ballistic missile strike on Kyiv

Once again, Ukraine received no warning from its partners about a missile strike on Kyiv on the evening of October 13. One possible reason is the difficulty of detecting ballistic missiles under adverse weather conditions, particularly during heavy cloud cover and fog.

Following yet another attack, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that its partners had not informed Ukraine of the missile launches. At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump had previously stated that the United States continues to provide Ukraine with intelligence data.

Earlier, media outlets also reported that during the previous attack on October 12, the missile launches could not be detected due to adverse weather conditions.

According to Bohdan Dolintse, weather conditions can indeed complicate the operation of detection systems. This primarily concerns missiles from the S-300 and S-400 systems, which Russia uses in “surface-to-surface” mode.

Such missiles have high flight speeds and are launched from a relatively short distance from the Ukrainian capital. Specifically, launches can be carried out from the Bryansk and Kursk regions of Russia.

According to the expert’s assessment, under certain conditions, the missiles are capable of reaching Kyiv in just one or two minutes. This significantly reduces the time available to detect the threat and warn the population.

“Western detection systems are, first and foremost, critically dependent on the ability to see these missiles as they prepare for launch and once they are already in the air. Given poor weather conditions, it is usually impossible to detect the launch in a timely manner in such cases. In fact, the missile only becomes visible when it emerges from the clouds at an altitude of more than 10 kilometers. And as it descends, it disappears,” Dolintse noted.

The expert emphasized that during the fall and winter months, the effectiveness of detecting such rockets may decrease due to heavy cloud cover and fog.

Under unfavorable weather conditions, surveillance systems may find it more difficult to detect launch preparations or the missile itself after liftoff in a timely manner. Due to its high flight speed, there is little time to react.

At the same time, Dolintse’s explanation concerns the possible impact of weather conditions on missile detection and does not in itself confirm that this was the sole reason for the lack of a warning about the strike on October 13.

Aviation expert Bohdan Dolintse spoke about this on Channel 24.

Russian forces launched a “Shahed”-type drone strike on a residential area in Rivne. At least three civilians were injured as a result of the attack.

In Khmelnytskyi, Russian strikes on the logistics center of the “Epicenter” company destroyed approximately 85% of the goods stored at the facility. Throughout the day, Russian forces attacked the center ten times, causing five large-scale fires; however, no employees were injured.

As a reminder, Russia damaged several energy facilities in Kyiv.

Prior to this, the Russians launched ballistic missiles at Kyiv, with one strike confirmed to have hit a 9-story building.

We should add that late in the evening on October 12, Kyiv’s Left Bank came under attack by ballistic missiles. According to the Mykolaivsky Vanyok channel, the Ukrainian military had no information about the launches, so the alert was issued too late.