They have absolutely nowhere to hide from UAVs

1.03.2023

Yesterday, Russia was massively attacked by drones. The drones flew to the Moscow region and the Leningrad region. Why didn’t the Russian air defense forces work?

The Charter97.org website asked this question to Colonel of the Reserve of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, pilot-instructor Roman Svitan.

— Drones flew around the perimeter of the combat radius, somewhere around 600-700 kilometers, or even the whole thousand. The fact is that Russia does not have an appropriate air defense system. Any air defense system is taken from anti-aircraft missile systems with a certain range, altitude, and reaction speed. A multi-layered defense system is built from the complexes.

Some systems intercept high-speed and low-flying targets, some low-speed and high-flying, some high-altitude, and some ballistic. Tens of thousands of complexes are needed to completely close Russian territory airspace. No one has ever done this, either under the USSR or in Russia. I will say more, this is impossible to do, even if all of Russia starts producing more air defense systems and missiles. It is impossible to embrace the immensity. Russia in this sense is a defective country. It is simply impossible to close such a large territory for drones.

Air defense systems are placed only close to certain complexes: critical civilian or military infrastructure facilities. Obviously, there are not enough air defense systems for everything. I emphasize that Russia does not have an overall air defense system, only localized ones. It is very easy to plot a route for a drone aircraft by going around these points.

As soon as the Ukrainians had means of destruction that could reach distant military targets and hit them, these means began to be used. Serial production of these drones has already been launched. The Russians have absolutely nowhere to hide from them. There is no such mechanism — the territory is too large.

— Tell us more about these drones.

— There are a lot of them. At least seven were presented by the Ukrainian Minister of Defense. I will say that if seven were presented, it means that their number must be multiplied by two. It turns out that there are a dozen of them.

Judging by the photographs of the wreckage of the downed drones that the Russians showed, it was a UJ-22. A standard aircraft scheme, with a wingspan of more than three meters. It is almost invisible, as it’s assembled from plastic. The engine is two-stroke, with it the drone can carry somewhere at least 20 kilograms of explosives. These are either mines or shells.

Where it can go depends on how much fuel is poured into it. In principle, it can go more than 1,000 km one way. Combat radius with return trip is 500-700 km. The drone can reach its target, unload and return. Its speed is just such that not a single satellite can spot it, somewhere around 100 km / h.

I described one of those that the Russians showed. There are another dozen and a half of the same kind of drones with long and short ranges. There are also drones for 100-200 km with direct control and without communication with the satellite. They will work in the nearby “theater”, like Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, and Rostov. That’s the end, the happy life of the Russians is over.

— Can such unknown UAVs appear over Russian facilities on the territory of Belarus?

— Sure they can. The only problem is that in Belarus, all Russian military facilities are covered by air defense systems. Moreover, they have powerful S-300s there. If we know that there is an S-300 Triumph in Machulishchy, then there is no point in sending a drone there. They will knock it down.

This means that partisans need to be sent there, who will blow up the target either from a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, a Javelin, or a Switchblade.

https://charter97.org/en/news/2023/3/1/538271/