On the night of January 25, a large fire occurred at an oil refinery in Tuapse, Krasnodar Territory. The head of the Tuapse district, Sergei Boyko, said that a vacuum installation was on fire. Officially, the cause of the fire is not called. At the same time, it was reported that the plant was attacked by three Ukrainian kamikaze drones "Beaver". All the devices were shot down by the air defense system (air defense), but the wreckage of one drone fell on a vacuum column installation.
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| Ukrainian UJ-26 "Beaver". |
| Source: Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine |
What is the Beaver drone designed for?
The first information about the UJ-26 Beaver barrage ammunition appeared in May 2022. Then they published pictures of the device, built according to the aerodynamic scheme "duck". It is believed that such a scheme allows the drone to maneuver, bypassing the air defense zones.
The device developed by Ukrjet received an internal combustion engine located in the rear part of the fuselage. The flight range of the Beaver is 800-1000 kilometers, and the maximum speed is 200 kilometers per hour. The device weighing about 150 kilograms can stay in the air for up to seven hours.
The stated cost of one drone is about 108 thousand dollars. In July, it became known that 50 "Beavers" were purchased for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
What weapons do the Beaver drones carry?
The maximum mass of the warhead of the Beaver is 20 kilograms. It is believed that the Beaver drones carry the Soviet cumulative charge KZ-6. A Spanish Columba-type drone was equipped with the same charge, which Kiev used when trying to attack objects on Russian territory in November. In addition to the KZ-6, the drone, which a resident of Smolensk found near his land plot, received about 1.2 kilograms of C4 explosives.
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| UAV operators of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. |
| Source: Inna Varenytsia / Reuters |
The KZ-6 charge weighs three kilograms. It contains up to 1.8 kilograms of TG-40 explosive. The KZ-6 can penetrate up to 210 millimeters of armor or up to 550 millimeters of reinforced concrete.
Ukrainian drones are shot down and suppressed by electronic warfare
The captain of the first rank of the reserve, Vasily Dandykin, noted that air defense and electronic warfare (EW) equipment are used to combat the Beavers. So, in August 2023, the air defense system hit two drones in the area of Mozhaisk and Khimki near Moscow. The third device was suppressed by electronic warfare, after which it lost control and collided with a building under construction in Moscow City. Later it became known that Beaver drones were used for the attack.
Former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force for Air Defense, Lieutenant General Aytech Bizhev, noted that no country in the world has absolute protection from drones.
Aytech Bizhev
Lieutenant General, former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force for Air Defense