Russia's jet-powered drones could become one of the main challenges for Ukrainian air defense, as the enemy has scaled up their production. In addition, the speed of these UAVs is approximately three times higher than that of conventional "Shaheds," making them more difficult to intercept with mobile fire groups, while Ukraine is forced to deploy more expensive air defense systems, UNN writes, citing The Economist.
Details
According to the publication, conventional Shahed-type attack drones travel at a speed of about 200 km/h, while the new Russian jet-powered drones can reach approximately 600 km/h. This significantly reduces the time available to detect the target and for air defense units to respond, and also complicates the work of mobile fire groups, which are effectively used against slower drones.
In addition, to intercept jet-powered drones, Ukraine has to deploy aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, man-portable air defense systems, and automatic anti-aircraft guns more frequently. An interlocutor from The Economist within Ukraine's air defense system noted that during some recent attacks, the share of jet-powered drones shot down may have been only about 30%.
But it should be noted that this figure cannot be regarded as the overall effectiveness rate of Ukrainian air defense, since interception results depend on the scale and direction of the attack, the drones' flight route, and the air defense systems available in a particular area.
The scale of Russia's use of drones also continues to grow. In the last days of August, Russian forces launched nearly 1,500 UAVs at Ukraine, a significant proportion of which were jet-powered models.
The Economist notes that the spread of high-speed drones creates an additional problem for Ukraine ahead of winter: destroying them requires the expenditure of scarcer and more expensive air defense systems, while Russia continues to increase the scale of its air attacks.
This is connected with the technologies that Russia has mastered to scale up production of jet-powered attack drones. It now uses 3D printers to print parts of jet turbines. As a result, the cost of one such UAV has fallen to $70,000.
Russia has also accelerated the pace of ballistic weapons production and is already producing up to 100 missiles per month.
Recall
Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast continue to be under Russian attack on September 2, now for the seventh consecutive day. The enemy is mainly using jet-powered UAVs for the strikes.