DONETSK, January 15. /TASS/. Sea Sparrow missiles to be included in the latest US military package for Ukraine are intended for ship-born systems, while their efficiency for use in ground-based air defenses is dubious, an officer with the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said.
"The situation with RIM-7 Sea Sparrow is far from simple. This is almost the same missile aircraft used to be equipped with, and it was previously called AIM-7. Positioned as a medium-range projectile, it was first used in combat during the war in Vietnam," the militia officer told TASS.
The difference between using it in the surface-to-air role and in ship-born systems is pretty huge, he said.
"I cannot say how, if at all, they are adapted for surface-to-air defense purposes. <…> Obviously, these missiles can be installed somewhere and somehow launched. Even Soviet-era missile systems can be used for that, but the question is how its seeker will work and whether the control systems of the missile and the missile system can be synced. And nobody knows how all this will work. So far, Ukrainian air defenses have been regularly hitting residential areas from standard, Soviet-era missile systems," the militia officer added.
Ukrainian air defense projectiles have repeatedly fallen on blocks of flats - in Kiev and in neighboring countries. Earlier, Andrey Bayevsky, a DPR lawmaker and a militia lieutenant-colonel, told TASS that those incidents might have been caused by incompetence on the part of those who maintained the system or used it at firing positions.