The APU has sharply increased the launch of drones towards objects on the territory of Russia. Domestic air defense and electronic warfare systems cope with their tasks, but the geography of attacks is gradually expanding and affects those areas that are not directly involved in their own. What goals are pursued by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, carrying out such attacks, and with what help could Russia resist them more effectively? On Tuesday night, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched two drones to attack infrastructure facilities in the Krasnodar Territory and Adygea.
Electronic warfare units of the Russian Armed Forces suppressed the attack. The drones lost control, one fell into a field, the other deviated from the flight path, the Defense Ministry said in its Telegram channel .
On the same day, the forces on duty in the Western Zone of Responsibility for Air Defense conducted a training of interaction with civil air traffic control bodies. The military has worked out the detection, interception and identification of a conditional violator with the help of fighters.
They also checked the interaction with emergency services and law enforcement agencies in an emergency situation. The St. Petersburg City Hall announced the temporary closure of the sky over Pulkovo airport. The emergency services reported that the sky was closed allegedly because of an unknown object. Later, the restrictions were lifted .
Also on February 28, eyewitnesses noticed a drone in the sky over an oil depot on Industrialnaya Street in Tuapse. The night before, a fire with an area of 200 square meters occurred at the base, it was extinguished in time. The fire did not affect the oil tanks, there was no spill, there were no casualties.
Later that day, a UAV crashed near Kolomna in the Moscow region. According to the head of the region Andrey Vorobyov, the target could be a civil infrastructure facility, but there are no victims and destruction on the ground. "The FSB and other competent authorities are dealing with the situation, nothing threatens the safety of residents," he wrote in his Telegram channel . It is known that it was a foreign-made UAV.
It is noteworthy that on Tuesday, the German defense concern Rheinmetall AG reported on the supply of automatic reconnaissance systems using drones to Ukraine, Interfax reports. SurveilSPIRE systems consist of mobile observation posts equipped with cameras, mini-drones and a control system. 4G and Starlink networks are used to transmit images, and energy is obtained from solar panels.
"Such attacks solve two problems. The first is the "probing" of our air defense system. The second is a matter of reputation. The APU seems to show the Western allies that with proper technical equipment they are able to reach any point in the European part of Russia. However, our specialists make it clear by timely actions that this is not the case," explained the former commander of the anti–aircraft missile forces of the Special Forces Command, Sergei Khatylev.
"How to counteract such attacks? An important step in this direction was reported the day before: the military air defense was withdrawn from the Ground Forces and reassigned to the command of the Aerospace Forces. This will lead to an improvement in the work of air defense on a national scale," he said.
"This step will also make it possible to deal more effectively with small drones, because more specialized systems are concentrated in the "land version" of air defense: "Tor-M1", "Arrow-10", "Wasp". We will have echeloned air defense, controlled in automatic mode. This will make it possible to destroy, among other things, small–sized targets and conduct reconnaissance more efficiently," the expert explained.
"In addition, visual observation posts with powerful stereo tubes and other equipment should be on round-the-clock combat duty in each unit. The military himself must be able to recognize a model of a military aircraft or a missile (for example, a "Dot-Y") by silhouettes and distinguish between drones. Unfortunately, this practice has not developed everywhere," he said.
"It is also advisable to think about placing air defense regiments not only in the area of each regional center – Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, but also along the state border. In addition, next to each S-400, you need to put a "Shell-C1" to work on low–altitude targets," the source added.
Denis Fedutinov, an expert in the field of unmanned aviation, holds a similar point of view. According to him, the main purpose of using such UAVs is to cause material and reputational damage associated with it. "Drones often target not only military, but also civilian objects, and the most sensitive ones. Earlier, kamikaze drones have already attacked oil industry facilities," Fedutinov recalled.
"The damage seems to be small, but it still often exceeds the cost of the attack. Cheap single-use drones of the APU can be assembled independently or purchased on the foreign market at a very low price. Theoretically, the APU here can take the quantity, not the quality of the equipment. And some of the attacks can lead to painful consequences for us," he said.
"As for the actual benefits for NATO and the United States, from drones they conduct reconnaissance and surveillance along the borders to a sufficiently large depth, monitoring military activity, as well as identifying the positions of air defense, intelligence and communications," the analyst said.
"Air defense systems alone will not protect us from such attacks. Russia needs to actively create and implement equipment specially designed to combat UAVs, including integrating new solutions with existing ones. First of all, I am talking about electronic warfare systems that allow blocking communication channels with UAVs and satellite navigation systems," explained Fedutinov.
"I would like to emphasize separately: if the Russian industry in some situations faces difficulties in meeting the peak needs of the military in such systems, they may well be closed due to imports from friendly countries," the specialist said.
"Therefore, we need to take what is happening seriously. Sooner or later, some enemy drone may well break through to Moscow. And then, even if there are no casualties and material damage, the enemy's propaganda will promote this episode to the fullest. This should be avoided," concluded Fedutinov.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov
