Most Iranian UAVs fly to the Kyiv region and disappear on the outskirts of the capital.
Ukrainian air defense forces cannot hit Russian kamikaze drones flying across the Dnieper. Ukrainian Armed Forces Air Force Command Spokesperson Yuriy Ignat explained the reasons on the radio broadcast of Ukraine.
Russia uses Iranian kamikaze drones of the Shahed line, equipped with warheads weighing up to 40 kg. Operators program them to fly along the Dnieper river bed, where the drones are almost invisible to Ukrainian radar stations.
As Yuri Ignat explains, the lower the target flies, the harder it is to detect it because radars don’t “see” objects below antenna level. Electronic warfare equipment doesn’t do much against Shahed because they use several satellite navigation systems and if one is “stuck” the other is protecting it.
During the last two major attacks, the RF Armed Forces launched 45 and 39 of these drones, most of them targeting Kiev. Ukrainian troops managed to shoot down all the UAVs, although they moved along the Dnieper. According to Yuri Ignat, some of the drones were destroyed by the air commands “South” and “Vostok”, some were shot down by fighters, but the main work fell on the last line of defense – the Kyiv anti-aircraft missile brigade.
“It looks like a simple drone, but even the fighters are trained to shoot them down. If the interceptor aircraft is created, it will be something new and extraordinary that the Ukrainians do it themselves. We need to develop the kamikaze aircraft industry ourselves,” said Ignat, in addition to the drones of the Ukrainians against them. He added that they should develop weapons: electronic warfare and air defense systems.
Yuriy Ignat also commented on the effectiveness of the Ukrainian “єPPO” system, launched by the Odessa group “Tekhnari” with the support of the Ministry of Digital Development. This is an application that allows civilians to indicate the flight direction of airborne threats, such as UAVs, using a smartphone and a camera. The Spokesperson of the Armed Forces of Ukraine emphasized that drones fly mostly at night, when Ukrainians cannot see them, and also that the Shaheds move quite quickly.
“As long as there is a warning system or a call to 102, time will pass and the drone will already be somewhere else, its speed is 150 km/h. So this information that will come in huge amounts from everywhere. On the contrary, interfere with and even disorient our defenders,” he said.
Earlier, Yuriy Ignat said that the air defense forces will not be able to form a “dome” over the whole of Ukraine in the near future. According to him, it is physically impossible to place complexes along the entire border.
The developers said that the implementation of єPPO on New Year’s Eve helped the military shoot down two kamikaze planes. Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the Presidential Office, recommended that all Ukrainians use this service.
Source: Focus
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