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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
According to Yuriy Ihnat, currently Ukraine highly relies on aviation in the question of shooting down drones.
Today, during some attacks, Ukrainian forces can shoot down up to 85% of rocket unmanned aerial vehicles. However, not all drones launched can be shot down, said Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Communications Department of the Air Force Command, in the RBK-Ukraine podcast.
“Of course, everyone wants to see a higher kill rate — to reach 100%. But, unfortunately, with such a number of launched devices, this is impossible. There are round-the-clock attacks, limited rocket resources on our side, and the whims of weather — dense fog, clouds, precipitation. Most of our means today require visual targeting of the target. This is either the operator’s eyes, or optical sighting cameras, laser. This concerns both ground-based systems and airborne platforms,” Ihnat noted.
On the other hand, according to him, cloudiness also hinders the Russians. After all, if the drone is controlled via communication channels, through mesh networks, Russian operators would also like to see what is happening. So the operator probably needs to lower the drone lower during flight. But when visibility is poor, even descending the flight altitude does not help much.
“But they can launch drones both by coordinates and with direct operator control, using various communication channels. Of course, it is more difficult for us, so in such weather the percentage of shoot-downs decreases. But overall it still rises. During certain attacks we have up to 85% of rocket drone shoot-downs. This is a very high figure. But if at a nighttime attack there were 100 drones and 85 of them were shot down — good job? Of course, good job,” Ihnat added.
One remaining 15 conditional drones hit targets. These can include, in particular, substations 110 kV, at the substation 330 kV, or some other object, such as the Epicenter shopping center. Then the spokesperson for the Air Force stated, a huge warehouse burns, or railway traffic stops.
“But with our current level of supply, including missiles, the shoot-down rate is quite high. We are counting very much on the aviation component. Helicopters have shown themselves very well against ordinary ‘Shaheds’ with internal combustion engines. And fighter aviation has the highest indicator precisely in shooting down rocket drones,” Ihnat summing up.
Earlier, Defense Minister Yevheniy Khmara stated that Ukraine already has interceptor drones against rocket ‘Shaheds’ and is scaling up production of new countermeasures. One of the units destroyed all five aerial targets with five interceptors named ‘Bars.’
About how cheap interceptor drones are changing the air defense model, in the ZN.UA article “Ukraine’s small air defense. The class of weapon that did not exist before 2022 year and which everyone now wants to buy” economist, founder of the NGO “People’s Dream” and co-founder of the charitable foundation “Towards a Dream” Oleg Sarkits
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