The head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation countered apocalyptic projections made by military blogger Serhii Flash, who warned Russia would “flatten all of Ukraine” using the Iranian-made UAVs.
“They’ve scaled up production and plan to scale further,” Flash wrote on Telegram earlier, urging mass production of drone interceptors and nationwide training of operators.
“If we don’t act now, our infrastructure, manufacturing, and defense facilities are doomed.”
According to him, the main focus should be on the mass production of interceptor drones and training the military across the country in their use.
"We are running out of time," the expert claimed.
Kovalenko pushed back, saying the quantiy of Russian drones would ultimately be neutralized by Ukraine’s investment in quality.
He emphasized that in the future, technology will continue to evolve, including artificial intelligence algorithms that will allow drones and weapons to avoid interception. At the same time, the systems that will counteract these drones will be improved. This is a large-scale technological competition between China and Western countries.
"That's the whole picture, it's definitely not worth making a 'doomsday' scenario," Kovalenko said.
On June 15, CNN reported that Russia has stepped up its air attacks on Ukraine, launching hundreds of drones and missiles a night, and has changed its tactics as the raids are now more concentrated and much harder to deal with, as the drones fly at high altitudes, out of the reach of machine guns.
Russia has successfully increased domestic production of the Iranian Shahed UAV and now launches hundreds of them every day. According to Christina Harward, a Russia analyst at the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War, Moscow can now produce about 2,700 Shaheds per month, as well as about 2,500 decoy drones. In addition, the Russians have adapted decoy UAVs in such a way that it is extremely difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.