Image source: topwar.ru
Today, the air defense forces of the Russian Armed Forces on duty intercepted and shot down three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles created on the basis of the Aeroprakt A-22 (Flying Fox) light-engine aircraft in the sky over the Murmansk region. An air alert was declared in the region, the airports of Murmansk and Apatity suspended their work.
As in August, when an AFU UAV was shot down over the region, the drones were destroyed near the village of Vysoky. Presumably, their target was the military airfield "Olenya", where the strategic missile carriers of the Russian Aerospace Forces are based. In addition, the main naval base of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation is located in Severomorsk.
After that, several Russian telegram channels wrote that the UAV data had entered the territory of the Russian Federation allegedly from Norway or Finland. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, commented on these reports at today's briefing. The Kremlin speaker urged not to rush to conclusions, such statements can only be made by the Russian military, but not by military commanders, bloggers and journalists.
Peskov said.
He also warned "against being perceived as primary sources of messages from various electronic media or near the media."
Earlier, the governor of the Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, commented on the attacks of Ukrainian drones on the region in his telegram channel. He asked the residents of the region to understand the restrictions imposed and to trust only official information. According to the governor, three drones were shot down by air defense systems of the Russian Armed Forces in the sky over the Murmansk region today.
According to unofficial data, the route of one of the UAVs ran along the Russian-Finnish and Russian-Norwegian borders to complicate the interception by air defense forces due to the risks of hitting targets in Finland and Norway.
Due to the closed airspace over the Murmansk region, aircraft have to fly around almost the entire Kola Peninsula. Earlier, a Pakistani Airlines plane en route from Toronto to Lahore returned to Finnish airspace. Then the Boeing 777 of Rossiya Airlines, the next flight from Varadero to Sheremetyevo, also "made a detour", bypassing the sky over the region, which, however, did not lead to a flight delay.
As for the A-22 Flying Fox two—seat light-engine aircraft, developed in Ukraine in 1996, in the basic version it is controlled by a pilot (the second seat is passenger). However, it is known that Ukrainian engineers are making Aerosor Nynja drones based on the specified aircraft, installing autonomous and remote navigation and control systems.
The drone covers a distance of more than 600 kilometers at a cruising speed of about 160 km / h with a payload of several hundred kilograms. The Forbes agency claims that a Ukrainian drone converted from a sports aircraft is usually equipped with a FAB-100 or other ammunition. Moreover, it is attached to the bottom, which allows the UAV to return back after dropping the explosives. Autonomous navigation during a potentially six-hour mission is probably carried out using GPS, but there is also a video camera that can help a remote operator connected to the drone via satellite direct it to the target in the last seconds of flight.
Image source: topwar.ru
