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Ukraine is knocking down Russia’s newest cruise missiles with a gun designed in the 1940s. Soldiers of Ukraine’s 121st Separate Territorial Defense Brigade shot down Russian S8000 “Banderol” and Kh-59 missiles using old Swedish 40mm Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns, the brigade said.

The “Chaklun” (Sorcerer) crew downed one of the missiles near Odesa. The next day, the “Hunter” crew intercepted another near a different southern city.

When Ukrainian expert Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov first analyzed the Banderol, he warned it was too fast for Ukraine’s mobile fire teams to hit with standard ground-based machine guns, and that countering it would require systems like the Gepard that can track fast-moving targets.

Old gun, new missile, and old gun won

The Banderol is a jet-powered cruise missile that flies at 400 to 500 km/h.

The Bofors L70 that just downed one was developed in the late 1940s and has been in service with armies worldwide since the 1950s. 

Defense Express calls the intercepts vivid proof of the L70’s usefulness.

Analysts noted that the 121st Brigade’s L70S carries no substantial modifications beyond new sighting equipment, so aiming at air targets is most likely still done manually.

Hand-aimed 1940s gun did what machine guns could not

That matters because of the economics Ukraine fights for. A cannon shell costs a tiny fraction of an interceptor missile, and every Banderol or Kh-59 knocked down by a Bofors round is one not engaged with a scarce guided interceptor.

Ukraine has built its whole air-defense survival strategy on driving down the cost-per-intercept by scaling cheap interceptor drones, standing up private and community fire groups, and now, it turns out, getting decades-old donated cannons to kill modern missiles. The cheapest shot that works is the right shot.

Guns came from Lithuania and the Netherlands

The Bofors L70S in Ukrainian service arrived as Western military aid. Lithuania sent L70 guns to Ukraine as part of a package announced in 2023, and the weapons were also provided to Ukraine by the Netherlands.

The through-line of Ukraine’s air war is that no single system solves the problem, so everything that can hit a target gets used, including a Swedish cannon older than most of the armies that still field it.

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