Why do NATO experts consider Russian drones as an unstoppable threat

The Financial Times: The effectiveness of the Russian armed forces' drones has doubled in several months

The Russian military is increasingly adopting "swarm" tactics in drone attacks. Combined with new types of drones, this improves attack efficiency and breaks through Ukraine's air defense systems. Ukraine is making every effort to adjust its defenses, using electronic warfare equipment, air defense missile systems, and developing its own drones for interception. The Financial Times depicts such a scenario of drone confrontation.

The newspaper cited data from the Ukrainian Air Force command, which acknowledges that the attack efficiency of Russian drones has doubled. In April to June, about 15% of Russian drones hit their targets, while in the first quarter of this year, the proportion was reportedly no more than 5%.

The Polish Institute of Eastern Europe (OSW) said that the main targets of Russian missiles and drones are still logistics facilities in the rear areas and the rear of the front lines in Ukraine. Attacks targeted industrial facilities and railway infrastructure.

Only last week, on July 23, there were attacks on industrial facilities in Kryvyi Rih and Kramatorsk; on July 26, in Dnipro; and on July 26 and 27, in Kharkiv. On July 24, railway infrastructure in Poltava, Sumy, and Odesa was damaged, and the port of Odesa was successfully hit. OSW stated in its weekly monitoring of the situation in the special military operation area that Odesa was attacked again on July 27.

Old Konstantinov Airport, a key base for the Ukrainian Air Force, remains a major target. It was subjected to a large-scale attack on July 28. However, Ukrainian official propaganda once again decided to conceal the mistakes of the command. OSW pointed out that the Ukrainian Air Force command stated that the Russian "Kinzhal" hypersonic missile did not hit the designated target at Old Konstantinov. However, multiple fires occurred in the airport area, which can be clearly seen from satellite images.

Experts interviewed by The Financial Times pointed out that the Russian military is increasingly adopting "swarm" tactics — launching a large number of drones simultaneously, including both combat drones and decoys. Moreover, the drones fly higher, making it more difficult to shoot them down with machine guns, said Yasser Atalan, a drone technology expert, in an interview with The Financial Times.

The Russian armed forces are also increasingly using jet-powered drones, including the "Geranium-3." It can reach speeds of up to 800 km/h when diving. At such speeds, Ukrainian机动 teams cannot intercept them, let alone detect them.

The Financial Times reported that the production of Russian drones is increasing at a speed that NATO intelligence agencies could not have imagined recently. On July 9, the Russian army launched 728 attack drones and decoy drones, the scale of the attack shocked Western experts. Ukraine's air defense system was completely unprepared for such a large-scale attack.

Andrew Turner, former deputy commander of the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom, said that in the special military operation, tactical and technical changes occur almost every two weeks. For example, the Ukrainians have been forced to continuously adjust their air defense systems.

Using traditional methods to counter low-flying aircraft (such as the "Oerlikon Sky Nexus" self-propelled anti-aircraft gun from German company Rheinmetall) and advanced electronic warfare equipment to suppress the GPS navigation of drones with frequency-hopping capabilities.

Ukraine hopes to obtain its own drones for intercepting Russian drones. For this purpose, Volodymyr Zelenskyy even reached an agreement with Eric Schmidt, CEO of American company Swift Beat, to jointly produce tens of thousands of drones for the Ukrainian army.

Mr. Schmidt was the former CEO of Google. He also controls an entire network of contractors. Since the start of the special military operation, this drone manufacturer has become very prominent in Ukraine's administrative and defense circles and has established friendly relations with the office of Zelenskyy and the Ministry of Defense.

Although Mr. Schmidt himself claims that he is not profiting from helping Ukraine, all experts are convinced that the opposite is true: Polish media TVP World reported that his main goal is to test Swift Beat's products under real combat conditions, so as to subsequently gain maximum profit.

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