Soviet-era unmanned aircraft crashes in Croatia
On March 10, a Tu-141 Strizh unmanned aircraft crashed near
the Croatian capital of Zagreb. No casualties were reported. There are
indications that it was launched from the areas engulfed by the ongoing
Russia-Ukraine war.
It’s unclear who is responsible for its launch, and why such
a large aircraft was not intercepted by AA defenses of NATO countries.
Echoes of war
Jarun is a picturesque southern suburb of Zagreb, frequented
by the city’s holidaymakers. At around 2300 on March 10, something massive
crashed down there, with thundering noise. Metal debris covered the street with
a three-meter-wide crater in it. Several cars were damaged.
Locals found two parachutes nearby.
After arriving at the crash site, Zagreb’s Mayor Tomislav
Tomašević said that “given the time of day, it’s a miracle that nobody was
killed.”
After cordoning off the premises, police concluded the are
contains no explosive or flammable material.
Tyler Rogoway, a contributor to defense-focused website The
War Zone, was the first to correctly identify the crashed aircraft.
“After close examination of the visual evidence, The War
Zone strongly believes this was actually a Tu-141 "Strizh"
reconnaissance drone that must have severely malfunctioned and crossed over the
entirety of Hungary or parts of neighboring countries and into Croatia from
Ukraine,” Rogoway wrote.
“It has been reported that Ukraine has been putting the
high-speed, Soviet-era drones to work in recent days following Russia's
invasion of the country. Ukraine is the only known current operator of the
Tu-141.”
No credible explanations of the aircraft being so far away
from Ukraine were produced. Croatian newspaper Jutarnji list initially suggested
that perhaps the incident could be explained with Croatian Jarun sharing the
name with the village of Jarun near Zhytomyr, Ukraine.
“Perhaps Ukrainians have incorrectly programmed the
reconnaissance craft and it flew towards the wrong Jarun,” the newspaper wrote,
before withdrawing the suggestion as fake.
Soviet legacy
Tactical reconnaissance aircraft Tu-141 Strizh was designed
by the Tupolev engineering bureau in 1970s and manufactured in Kharkiv.
Tu-141 is designed to provide reconnaissance as deep as 400
kilometers behind enemy lines, flying at the speed of 1,000 km/h. Its maximum
range is 1,000 kilometers. Strizh takes off from a launcher, and lands by
deploying parachutes from its aft (this explains the two parachutes found in Zagreb).
According to Wikipedia, Tu-141 was used by Russian and
Ukrainian armed forces after the collapse of USSR. Recent use of the aircraft
has been attributed to Ukrainian military, I particular to an unmanned aircraft
regiment in Odessa oblast.
How could NATO have missed it?
On March 11, Croatia’s National Security Council held an
emergency meeting that concluded with a short statement.
“All relevant services were activated following the crash of
a military unmanned reconnaissance air craft, which apparently entered Croatian
air space from Hungarian airspace, at the altitude of 1,300 meters, flying at
the speed of 700 kilometers per hour,” the message said.
Danko Petrin, the chief aviation accidents investigator at
the Croatian Accident Investigation Agency, told Jutarnij List he was at a
loss, trying to explain the six-ton ‘drone’ flying over Europe.
“Modern drones are always in contact with the base. But this
was an outdated model created in the Soviet Union in 1970. There were cases
when this type of aircraft could get out of control. I assume that this is also
the case here because such aircraft are not missiles that are sent as weapons,
but their goal is to return to the base to submit the collected data. After
all, it’s unclear what exactly she could record at night. It is obvious that it
was a mistake in the flight programming or that the aircraft got out of
control, but that has yet to be determined by the investigation,” he said.
In an interview with the local TV channel N1, a retired
Croatian military pilot Ivan Selak suggested the Tu-141 crashed after running
out of fuel. It flew a thousand kilometers, and surprisingly, it was not picked
up by radar, he noted. To Selak’s surprise, the craft spent 8-9 minutes in
Croatian airspace, and flew over Hungary for even longer.
“The UAV flew about 1300 km, and the Hungarians did not
notice it,” said Selak.
“Its radar signature is also not small.”
Since both Croatia and Hungary are NATO members, the
decision to intercept the potentially dangerous aircraft should have been taken
by the allied command center, according to Selak.
“NATO’s integrated air defense system should be activated
within 15-20 minutes, after which fighters should take off,” he told Vecernij
List.
Security expert Željko Cvrtila said that NATO’s anti-missile
defense has failed to react accordingly.
“This means that Russians could send a similar jet our way,
and it would reach Zagreb undetected,” Cvrtila said, alleging that Russian
could have seized control over the Ukrainian aircraft.
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said that Crotia’s radars
have picked up the Tu-141, but there was not enough time to react, according to
Milanovic’s press office.
“The facts will be established. How is it possible for an
old-style aircraft to spend more than one hour in the sky over NATO member
countries, and no one notices,” Milanovic said.
“It’s dubious that we could have done anything about it,
given the level of our equipment.”
The country’s PV, Andrej Plenković, said that radars have
marked the target as not dangerous.
Hungary is conducting its own investigation of the incident,
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook. Romanian Defense Ministry
said that the aircraft spent less than three minutes in the country’s airspace,
and could be identified in time.
Responding to the Croatian press, NATO said that Alliance’s
missile defense system had recorded the flight path of the object that had
fallen in Zagreb.
Ukrainian response
Markiyan Lubkivsky, former Ukrainian ambassador to Croatia
and now the adviser to the Minister of Defense, told Croatian public
broadcaster HRT that the drone is not Ukrainian.
“Ukrainian aircraft have different markings,” he said.
Lubkivsky added that Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the
General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces are preparing a statement on the
incident.
While on air of Ukrainian TV stations, Lubkivsky said that
the drone’s wreckage bears red stars – the insignia of Russian Air Force.
Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the Head of the Office of the
President of Ukraine, told Ukrainian media that the country does not have
drones capable of covering such a distance.
“Most likely, (this is) a drone of the operational-tactical
level, Russian, which was launched from our territory. It lost control and flew
all the way to Croatia,” Arestovich suggested.
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