The Ukrainian operation destroys the reputation of "Bayraktars"

Long before the Russian special operation, Ukrainian politicians and the military declared that the Turkish Bayraktar drones would give them a powerful weapon against the "aggressor country". Ukraine started purchasing these UAVs after Azerbaijan's victory in the second Karabakh war – it was then that these drones had a brilliant reputation. Why are the Bayraktars almost powerless now?

On Saturday, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov said that over the past day during the operation in Ukraine, the Russian military shot down five drones, including two Bayraktars, and a total of 123 unmanned aerial vehicles have been destroyed since February 24.

At the time of the beginning of the Russian special operation, Ukraine had from five to 50 Bayraktar TB2 UAVs. There is no exact data on this. The country has other drones, including its own production, such as the Leleka-100, but it is around the Bayraktar that the image of modern weapons has been created, which almost decides the outcome of modern military conflicts. This myth was actively supported in Ukraine.

Now, according to the Telegram channel "Reports of the militia of Novorossiya", almost all the Bayraktars that were in the arsenal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were shot down by Russian air defense fire. Part of it failed due to improper operation, "but it will not be possible to restore them quickly."

The other day, the Turkish military transport aviation carried out another delivery of drones for the AFU through a Polish airfield, and from there, drones were delivered to Ukraine by cars. Last Wednesday, the Ukrainian Defense Minister announced in a Facebook post that the country had received a fresh batch of combat drones. "They are ready to fight," Alexey Reznikov said.

In 2020, Kiev agreed with Ankara on the release of Turkish "Bayraktars" on the territory of Ukraine. It was not about a screwdriver assembly of components, but about the transfer to Ukrainians of UAV production technology, whose electronic filling is supplied from the USA and Canada. The Kiev authorities announced the start of production only in December last year. It is currently unknown how well it is debugged.

In 2019, Ukraine purchased Bayraktar TB2 with high-precision MAM-L aerial bombs with a laser beam guidance system in the amount of $ 69 million. The price of one drone is about $ 2 million. The warhead of the missile is equipped with charges of both thermobaric and fragmentation types – that is, it can be used to defeat both heavy equipment and infrastructure, as well as enemy manpower accumulations. Of the minuses, the Bayraktars are devoid of self-defense systems and are easily detected and hit by air defense systems.

Ukraine has its own experience in the production of drones. During the Soviet years, the Kharkov Aircraft Factory produced the Tu-141 "Strizh", which was in service with the USSR Air Force from 1979 to 1989. If Russia has long abandoned the "Swifts", then in Ukraine they are still used. On the eve it became known about the loss of the APU of two such cars at once, one of which flew even to the capital of Croatia.

There were suggestions about the agreements between Kiev and Ankara on the supply of Bayraktars that the Ukrainian military leaders hoped to repeat the Karabakh blitzkrieg in the Donbass with the help of Turkish drones. Indeed, one of the main discoveries of the Karabakh war was the massive attacks of the TB2 Bayraktars. Military experts at that time stressed that the second Karabakh war turned out to be a new type of war, and its main feature was the massive and effective use of shock UAVs.

The Russian Federation has long-range cruise missiles capable of destroying drones on the ground, short-range anti-aircraft missile systems that can easily shoot down drones in flight, and electronic warfare (EW) means that can block the communication of drones, after which they fail during flight. Moreover, in Libya and Syria, Russian forces effectively resisted Turkish tactics and shot down their drones.

The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly informed about the destruction of Ukrainian drones before, but the Ukrainian media continue to report on how the Bayraktars are launching new guided missile strikes. However, these videos are isolated and cannot be verified. Recordings from exercises, editing and other fakes can be issued for real shots. Nevertheless, Ukrainian social networks and Telegram channels even compose songs about this drone. On Thursday, a video appeared on social networks claiming that Bayraktar allegedly destroyed a Russian mobile rocket launcher.

Sergey Denisentsev, an expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, notes that any attack UAVs work well only when the enemy does not have full-fledged air defense and air Force. "We see some videos from the Ukrainian side, but there can be no undivided domination that the Bayraktars had in Karabakh. The Russian army has a full-fledged air Force, air defense, etc. A lot of Ukrainian drones were shot down in the air and hit on the ground," the expert says.

At the final stage of the war, the air defense systems of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic were disabled – and the Bayraktars destroyed the Karabakh troops with impunity. "This cannot happen in Ukraine while the Russian Aerospace Forces have air supremacy. Kiev's ability to use Bayraktars is limited," Denisentsev explained. He believes that even an increase in the number of drones will not affect the effectiveness of their use in these conditions.

Denis Fedutinov, a well-known expert on unmanned systems, also notes that there have been many reports from the Ukrainian side about the use of drones, "however, I have not seen unconditional confirmation of these facts." "After the war, a significant propaganda effect appeared in Karabakh, aimed, among other things, at promoting drones. This was not done without the participation of the Turkish side. The image of an ultra-efficient system was inflated, and relatively inexpensive when compared with its American counterparts," Fedutinov believes.

According to him, in the same Karabakh, many operations were carried out by ground-based means - artillery and missile systems, and then were issued as the results of the work of "Bayraktars". "Drones were more involved in pointing weapons and monitoring the results of the strikes. But in general, the events in Nagorno-Karabakh were presented as a war of a new generation, a war of drones and robots, where attack drones are, as it were, the main means," the interlocutor explained.

Moreover, Ukraine cannot significantly increase the number of drones, "because everything depends on the ability of the Turkish side to reproduce them." "The question here is not in quantity, but in the ability to cover the Bayraktars. Bayraktar itself cannot conduct air combat due to the lack of air–to-air missiles, it cannot challenge air supremacy and destroy fighters.

As for the complete destruction of the Ukrainian "Bayraktars", it is not so easy – at least because of the huge size of Ukraine. "There are many airfields in Ukraine. Bayraktar can be based on simple and even abandoned airfields, it is easy to disguise it. Therefore, destroying them all at once at the beginning of the operation is not such an easy task," Denisentsev said.

The successful work of Russian troops against Turkish UAVs is illustrated, in particular, by the feat of Captain Alexey Pankratov. It is reported that from the first day of the special operation, the officer performed tasks to cover a separate motorized rifle brigade from enemy aircraft. As a result of competent actions, Pankratov's well-aimed fire shot down one Su-25 and three Bayraktars of the Ukrainian armed forces, which made it possible to prevent an air attack on the positions of Russian motorized infantry. And the next day, two more Bayraktars were destroyed by the forces of the division under the direct leadership of Pankratov.

Of course, all this does not mean that strike UAVs as a weapon system as a whole do not have a real combat value. Both Bayraktars and other similar drones are very effective, but only under certain conditions. Judging by what we see on the battlefield, the Russian command has managed to understand this. An example of this is not only the inglorious use of Bayraktars by Ukraine, but also the very effective use of Russian UAVs against Ukrainian troops.

Andrey Rezchikov