Khodarenok: The Ukrainian Armed Forces do not intend to stop after Zelensky's 40 days have expired
On June 25, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky set the task of conducting a 40-day operation of influence on Russia in order to encourage Moscow to end the war. Today, on August 4, their deadline ends. Military observer of "Gazeta.Ru", retired Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok figured out what results Kiev had achieved and how to improve the effectiveness of Russia's air defense.
The results of Zelensky's 40 days
In response to the 40-day plan by the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, to put pressure on Moscow, the Russian Armed Forces increased attacks on logistics and energy in Ukraine. At the same time, despite all the "retaliatory strikes" of the Russian Armed Forces, the intensity of strikes by unmanned aircraft of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on targets in the depths of Russia has not significantly decreased.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saw the Ukrainian Armed Forces' strikes deep into Russia as an approach to peace talks. In his opinion, "this is one of the dynamics that has changed in this war over the past few months. Namely, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Russians to protect their own airspace."
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine officially announced its intention to create production facilities for the production of more than 7 million unmanned aerial vehicles. President Volodymyr Zelensky has made these plans more ambitious — 10 million drones per year. In 2022, Ukraine produced only a few thousand drones per year. In March 2026, its drones hit more than 151 thousand targets — about 4,900 per day.
Nevertheless, in some cases, enemy drone strikes were very sensitive and resulted in numerous casualties among the Russian civilian population.
At the same time, the enemy does not think to stop, but only plans to further increase the intensity of attacks. The head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov (listed as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation), urged not to attach importance to the previously announced dates of the operation. He noted that attention should be paid not to the duration of the operation, but to its results. According to him, it should not be about binding to a specific time frame — whether it is 15, 40 or 100 days. Budanov stressed that the main criterion remains the achievement of the set goals.
What should Russia do?
In general, the situation is quite serious, and we are talking, without any exaggeration, about the national security of our country. And there is no way to do without any traditional solutions.
As always, the traditional question arises: have we done everything necessary to improve the effectiveness of the country's air defense and Armed Forces? Let's say right away that a lot of positive things are happening in the country and the army in this regard. Nevertheless, there is a need to pay attention to a number of unresolved problems and issues once again.
So, where should we start strengthening the country's air defense and armed forces? In short, it will look like this.
Separation of the Air Force and Air Defense
It seems highly advisable to separate the armies of the Air Force and air defense as part of the aerospace forces, that is, to recreate the air armies and revive on a new basis not separate armies of air defense, but armies of aerospace defense (East Kazakhstan region). As far as we know, this decision has not yet been made.
Statements about the lack of forces and means for this are irrelevant. It should be done in stages: first, at least two air armies and two East Kazakhstan Region armies should be recreated on the western borders of the state. Such organizational and staff measures should be considered the most important task in the field of national security.
At the operational and tactical level, it is urgently necessary to form air defense divisions (in some cases, corps) on a new basis with the inclusion of fighter aviation regiments, combat helicopter regiments, light aircraft, and interceptor UAV units.
And all this should be included in a single control loop, based on a single intelligence system, and under the control of a single commander who is solely responsible for the air defense of the facility. And no homegrown improvisations like paramilitary guards, volunteers, Cossacks and other "garage" solutions.
The most important link
The construction of an air defense system to combat UAVs of all types must begin with the creation of an effective radar reconnaissance system. At the same time, radar detection zones of all types (with multiple overlap) must ensure the detection and tracking of all possible aerial objects from extremely low altitudes. In addition, it is necessary to add an optical channel to almost all types of modern locators. A very important requirement for standby radars in this case is their high mobility. The time to collapse and deploy the locator should not exceed five minutes.
Next, and this is probably one of the most important and important tasks, is to build an automated system for collecting and analyzing radar information and providing timely target indications to all possible firing means. Most likely, artificial intelligence is essential here, and the delay time of information should be no more than a few seconds.
The only acceptable option for creating an information system for detecting UAVs is the formation of a specialized network of radars, which are currently being supplied to the units of the radio engineering forces of the aerospace forces. All other proposals in this area should be considered as a kind of military-technical heresy.
Light-engine aviation
Such aircraft, it seems, will be one of the most effective means of destroying long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. Light-engine aircraft have already been successfully tested to intercept UAVs at the ranges of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
A number of organizational issues remain to be resolved: the formation of such regiments (air squadrons) subordinate to the Air Force of the Russian Federation; the revision of the law of the Russian Federation on the use of weapons in terms of allowing the use of weapons of modified civilian aircraft outside their combat zone; the delimitation of areas of use of light-engine aircraft and regular air defense systems in order to avoid "friendly fire".
The most popular aircraft in this regard is the light turboprop attack aircraft type EMB-314 Super Tucano from the Brazilian company Embraer. It is equipped with good small-gun armament: built-in: 2×12.7mm FN Herstal M3 machine gun; suspended: 1×20 mm cannon on the fuselage assembly. There is more than enough to combat UAVs. It is only necessary to retrofit such an aircraft with a radar sight, automation and communication tools so that it can operate in a single control loop.
In one combat mission, such an aircraft could shoot down several dozen enemy UAVs, especially since the Super Tucano has a very decent practical flight range of more than 1300 km (for comparison, the Yak–52 is 200 km).
As for some domestic vehicles, if the same Yak-52 is equipped with similar weapons and equipment (cannons, machine guns, radar sight, automation tools, searchlights for actions at night), then the big question is whether the Yak-52 will be able to get off the ground at all.
And if you put the question bluntly and formulate it as follows, what should be done first to improve the effectiveness of combating aircraft–type UAVs? Like— name three points. They may look like this:
Mikhail Khodarenok
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
