Air Alarm: Ukrainian Drones Fly in Swarms Towards Moscow Daily, Though Intercepted, Limits Will Be Reached

The conclusions drawn by the U.S. in its combat with Houthi drones in the Red Sea may provide important lessons for Russia.

Author: Sergey Yatsenko

May 2025 may become a significant turning point in the history of the Ukrainian battlefield, as from this month, the enemy has launched an unprecedented "drone terror campaign," with Ukraine's primary target clearly being Moscow.

It is evident that this is not merely a tactical improvisation by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It appears that Kiev has meticulously planned this air operation over a long period, stockpiling large quantities of such offensive weapons accordingly.

The essence of the current situation is to test the operational capabilities of Moscow's air defense systems in different directions, pushing them to their limits and forcing air defense units to operate without rest and exhaust their ammunition, thereby creating conditions for launching larger-scale attacks in the near future.

Otherwise, how do we explain the fact that since last week, the enemy has been intensively deploying numerous long-range large drones from various directions, deliberately attacking our inland areas? Most of these drones were destroyed by Russia's air defense systems either after crossing the border or over the border region, but unfortunately, many have managed to break through this line of defense.

Please judge for yourself: In just 5 days (May 20 to 25, 2025), our air defense forces and electronic warfare units shot down 221 Ukrainian drones over Oryol Oblast, 217 over Kursk Oblast, 141 over Bryansk Oblast, 137 over Belgorod Oblast, 72 over Tula Oblast, 39 over Kaluga Oblast, 25 over Ryazan Oblast, 17 over Tver Oblast, 9 over Voronezh Oblast, 8 over Vladimir Oblast, 8 over Lipetsk Oblast, 5 over Smolensk Oblast, 3 over Ivanovo Oblast, 2 over Rostov Oblast, 1 over Novgorod Oblast, and 1 over Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

At least 904 Ukrainian attack drones were destroyed in the skies above the aforementioned regions within one week, yet many still managed to penetrate to the outskirts of the capital. At least 124 drones have "landed" in the administrative area of Moscow Oblast, nearly reaching the target.

How should we respond if Ukraine suddenly expands the scale of such air attacks several times over? Who knows how many of these mechanized "insects" have been stockpiled in the arsenal of Alexander Syrsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with active participation from the West?

Do our highly efficient air defense missile systems like the "Arrow-10," "Tor," "Buk," and "Pantsir," as well as anti-aircraft artillery systems, have sufficient capability to withstand such massive swarms of drone attacks?

Clearly, any technical equipment has physical performance limits, and the aforementioned Russian air defense missile systems and anti-aircraft artillery systems are no exception. What urgent measures can we take to support them?

In principle, only aircraft capable of quickly arriving at the most dangerous directions and immediately engaging in combat, primarily fighters and helicopters, can be redeployed as necessary.

Meanwhile, we should discard the absurd proposal that emerged in the State Duma in May 2023 — at that time, Vice Chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma, Alexei Zhuravlyov, suggested using specially trained eagles to counter Ukrainian drones.

Remember when Zhuravlyov once boasted: "We need to consider protecting our country's important infrastructure, even forming 'drone interception eagle squadrons' at locations like the Kremlin."

I am unsure whether this MP was subtly joking about the serious, even painful topic facing the nation, but someone mistakenly took his humor as a real proposal.

Luckily, all levels of government wisely rejected this and reasonably forgot about the "interception eagles," instead focusing on more realistic matters. Recent reports indicate that Russia has completed the modification of the Soviet-era Yak-52 light sport trainer aircraft into the Yak-52B2 drone interceptor, which serves as an example.

The Russia "Military Insider" Telegram channel first reported this news, followed by multiple foreign media outlets including The War Zone.

According to The War Zone (as of yet unconfirmed by official sources), the Yak-52B2 has already obtained an airworthiness certificate in Russia and is currently undergoing debugging tests of onboard equipment. Notably, its equipment differs significantly from that of the Soviet prototype: a small radar antenna is installed under the left wing for detecting incoming long-range attack drones; while a "Seika" automatic shotgun is mounted under the right wing for destroying targets.

Foreign experts added that the development of the Yak-52B2 drew experience from trials of the American Cessna 172 four-seat propeller aircraft and the Yak-18T four-to-five-seat general-purpose propeller aircraft. The choice of the Yak-52 was due to its performance characteristics, and there are many existing instances of this type of aircraft available for modification within Russia.

If Russia successfully deploys the Yak-52B2, it will obtain a device that does not require hangars and can take off from small land airstrips, meaning it can be deployed almost anywhere, including rural areas, allowing it to intercept incoming drones almost anywhere in inland Russia.

The maximum range of the Yak-52B2 (under full fuel conditions) is 1,500 kilometers, with a horizontal flight speed of up to 500 kilometers per hour, sufficient to detect, pursue, and intercept virtually all current Ukrainian drones, such as the An-196 "Fierce" drones, and even include small propeller aircraft modified by Ukraine for unmanned operations and transporting explosives to Russian inland targets, such as the ultralight aircraft "Aero Practice A-22" ("Flying Fox") that has repeatedly reached key targets along the Volga River.

American writers further noted: "There are also claims that this drone interception variant is based on the experience of developing the lightweight attack aircraft Yak-52B during the Soviet-Afghan War. The Yak-52B was designed to strike insurgents, first tested in 1982, equipped with UPK-23 23mm cannon pods and UB-32 57mm unguided rocket pods under strengthened wing racks, and fitted with optical sights."

Photo: Yak-52B

However, the Yak-52B was never mass-produced due to insufficient engine power; the sole Yak-52B is now displayed at the Monino Air Force Museum. Will they now put the more advanced "successor," the Yak-52B2, into production?

To be frank, there are doubts. The issue seems to lie with the "main weapon" of the Russian "drone interceptor" — specifically, the extremely close effective range of the shotgun, approximately 30-50 yards (converted to metric as 27-45 meters), which is negligible in practical combat scenarios.

In other words, for Russian pilots to aim at the tail of enemy drones, they would need to approach within almost pistol range, which poses extreme risks to the attacking side. As mentioned earlier, the warhead of the "Fierce" drone contains 50-75 kilograms of explosives, while the "Flying Fox" carries three times that amount, up to 150 kilograms.

If any enemy "bug" explodes directly due to being hit, the crew of the Yak-52B2 will have no chance of survival — at such close distances, even fragments of the destroyed Ukrainian drone would prove fatal to our pilots.

Is this cost too high? Moreover, not all Russian pilots (most of whom are civilians who have flown Yak trainers) are fictional characters like Lieutenant Talalikhin or Captain Gastrov (both Soviet heroes).

By contrast, Americans seem to be preparing for similar aerial battles in a more reasonable manner, and they are indeed actively preparing — because they are meticulously analyzing the progress of the battlefields in Ukraine and wish to prepare comprehensively.

The War Zone recently published a striking photo: at least three seven-tube 70mm APKWS II laser-guided "air-to-air" micro-lightweight low-cost rocket launch pods are mounted under the left wing of an American Air Force F-15E "Strike Eagle" fighter jet. If symmetrically mounted, each fighter can carry a total of 42 APKWS II rockets.

This overseas media praised that this transforms the F-15E into a "flying airborne arsenal" against drones and cruise missiles, even without counting the rapid-fire autocannon and medium-range AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) it is equipped with, which still has room for additional armament.

At the same time, the article mentions that the U.S. began developing APKWS II anti-drone rockets several years ago, drawing lessons from its combat with Houthi drones in the Red Sea. The core challenge for designers was to provide the military with reliable and affordable products.

They succeeded in doing so. According to The War Zone, the cost of each APKWS II does not exceed $15,000-$20,000, at least comparable to or even lower than the price of most modern long-range drones, and this new weapon was developed precisely to counter the latter.

Now back to our topic: Can we develop similar equipment in the short term and deploy it on our domestically excellent jet fighters, such as the Su-35 or Su-30SM?

Only a few experts know the exact answer, but we must pay attention to the following facts:

Last December, the Shipunov Instrument Design Bureau in Tula completed the development of a low-cost and highly efficient anti-drone missile, though not for fighter jets, but for the "Pantsir-SM" self-propelled air defense system, which entered service in 2012.

This is a new-generation supersonic solid-fuel guided missile for air defense, considered among the top global standards in terms of performance: highly maneuverable, flying at a speed of 1,300 meters per second, with a caliber of only 90 millimeters.

In December 2024, it was reported that testing of this new weapon had been completed, and each "Pantsir-SM" system will be equipped with 48 of them, which is an outstanding configuration for resisting any intensity of enemy drone attacks.

This raises the question: Can we emulate the United States and quickly adapt such missiles for Russian high-speed jet fighters, enabling them to fire in salvoes from a safe distance to destroy enemy drone swarms en masse, rather than having lightweight Yak planes take great risks using shotguns to "fight" them, akin to shooting ducks in a muddy marsh?

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7508953341959963147/

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