If a Russia-NATO war were to erupt today -- or in the next 10 years -- the badly outnumbered Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will lose decisively, due mostly to a huge dearth of modern surface-to-air missiles (SAM) capable of shooting down NATO's massive arsenal of ballistic missiles, jet combat aircraft and unmanned aerial drones.

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Without modern SAM systems, the Russian Army with its mass of conscript soldiers are sitting ducks for NATO and U.S. missiles, manned aircraft and armed aerial drones that can destroy its formations with impunity.

This grim estimate made by Russian military analysts and commentators said Russia's SAM shortage renders Russia unable to defeat a massive NATO attack in the next 10 years. Russia has sought to camouflage the scandalous weakness in its air defenses by over hyping in the media its newest S-400 and S-500 SAM systems to instill fear out of proportion to the grim reality.

The share of "modern" SAMs and radars in the inventory of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), which is responsible for the Russia's air defenses, is 45 percent, admitted General-Lieutenant Viktor Gumennyy, Deputy VKS Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Air and Missile Defense.

As for the again delayed S-500 "Triumfator" system that was supposed to have been deployed in 2015 and then in 2016, Gen. Gumennyy said Almaz-Antey (the state-owned conglomerate producing the SAM) is completing development work on the S-500, and VKS will receive it "soon."

According to Russian analysts, "soon" is realistically by 2020 or a few years thereafter, and not 2017, which is the new public relations deadline for this system becoming operational with front line defense units.

Deputy Minister of Defense and procurement chief Yuriy Borisov predicted in 2015 the S-500 won't complete development until 2017, however.

A Russian military website expects the S-500 to appear with operational units on an "experimental" basis in 2017.

Russia's modern SAM systems refer to the operational S-300 andS-400 and the long-delayed S-500. The S-500 has yet to be completed, while its S-400 predecessor can launch the older 48N6 and 9M96 missiles.

Only seven air defense divisions have been supplied with the S-400 since 2007, with another 49 waiting to receive them.

The S-300 is over 20 years old.

"The last S-300 was produced for the Russian army in 1994 or so," said Igor Ashurbeili, co-chairman of an expert council on aerospace defense and former chief designer at Almaz-Antey.

"Since then, Russia has only produced these systems for sale. But now even export orders for the S-300s have been suspended."                   

As for the non-existent S-500, it will be an S-400 with long-range missiles, according to Alexanderf Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.

"The S-500s will at best be created in 2020 -- no earlier," he said.

"At present, and for the next 10 years, the chances of countering a massive NATO attack are very low. It takes a long time to recharge the S-300s, so, in the best case, they will only repel the first wave of an assault, which would be 100 to 200 targets," said Khramchikhin.

TagsNATO, U.S., Russia, Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, surface-to-air missiles, SAM, Russian Army, Russian Aerospace Forces, General-Lieutenant Viktor Gumennyy, Almaz-Antey, S-500, S-400, S-300