(Dan Tri) – A Ukrainian pilot announced that Kiev has found a way to counter Russia’s R-37M hypersonic missile – a weapon known as an aerial killer.

R-37M hypersonic missile (Photo: Wiki).

Responding to Lithuania’s Delfi channel, a pilot controlling a Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter with the code name `Juice` said that Kiev had found a way to avoid the Russian Air Force’s R-37M long-range air-to-air missile.

`We’ve created different tactics to avoid these missiles – and that’s why they currently don’t have a very successful strike rate against our jets,` Juice said.

The R-37M is a long-range air-to-air missile (AAM) capable of attacking high-speed aerial targets from more than 300-400km.

This is considered one of the longest-range air-to-air missiles in the world.

Military website Military Watch dubs the R-37 the longest-range and fastest air-to-air missile in the world.

Juice admitted that the danger of the R-37M caused Ukrainian pilots to change their planned flight route to avoid it.

For nearly 10 months, Russia has not been able to completely control Ukraine’s airspace for many reasons, but a bright spot for the Moscow Air Force is the MiG-31BM interceptor combined with the R-37M to become a pair of weapons.

These two weapons have `matched their swords` and shot down many Ukrainian fighters from a very long distance.

Experts from the RUSI institute (UK) said that Russian air defense patrols have proven highly effective against Ukrainian attack aircraft and fighters, with a pair of MiG-31BMs and missiles.

The MiG-31 flies higher, faster and farther than the Ukrainian air force’s best Sukhoi Su-27 interceptor.

From a high position, the MiG-31 easily applies the `look down, shoot down` tactic.

Ukraine’s avoidance tactics

Russian MiG-31M fighter (Photo: Wiki).

RUSI said that the combination of MiG-31 and R-37M creates a pair of very powerful weapons that make Russian missiles very difficult to intercept.

For a very long range of more than 128km, the MiG-31 crew detects the target with its own radar and fires the R-37M in the direction of the target.

For ranges below 128km, the missile flies on a flatter trajectory at a slightly slower speed.

However, Juice believes that Ukrainian pilots were able to fool the 9B-1103M-15 search device on the R-37M.

The Doppler mechanism is spring-like.

To avoid cluttering the pilot’s display, the Doppler radar has a detection threshold based on velocity.

That means that Ukrainian fighter pilots can do many things to deceive the Russian Doppler radar, such as changing direction, lowering altitude or shooting metal chips to confuse the Doppler radar.

This evasion technique is most effective when the pilot can still descend.

However, avoidance techniques are only effective when Ukrainian pilots know the missile is coming.

If the Ukrainian pilot did not constantly pay attention to the warning radar, he would not have had time to dodge.