Russia rapidly expands jet drone use
tvtoront/Twitter
In July, Russia launched five times as many jet-powered
drones at Ukraine as it did in June, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii
Ihnat said on Aug. 10.
“The share of jet-powered UAVs has risen sharply: if you compare June with July, there were five times more jet UAV launches in July,” Ihnat told broadcaster Hromadske.
Ihnat said Moscow is shifting emphasis from air-launched Kinzhal and Kh-101 missiles to Oniks and Zircon hypersonic missiles.
“That’s clear because they have launched more of them — you can see it from analyzing strikes even without [restricted] intelligence data,” he said.
On the use of North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles, Ihnat said the weapon had previously been used in a strike on Kryvyi Rih that killed an entire family. Specialists initially thought the strike was carried out with an Iskander-M, an S-400 or a KN-23, he said, but explosive ordnance technicians later confirmed the missile’s Korean origin by identifying fragments with unique parts. Ihnat said the KN-23 is essentially a copy of the Russian Iskander but is inferior in performance. He added that this was the only known use of a KN-23 in the past six months.
When asked whether Ukrainian forces could destroy Russian launchers to reduce strikes, Ihnat said it is possible but extremely difficult.
“An Iskander launcher is a mobile system on a wheeled chassis that arrives at a location at a specific time — when it’s cloudy or dark and not visible to satellites — takes position and can wait for a command,” he explained.
“When the missiles haven’t even reached the stratosphere and
the launcher already packs up and leaves. So destroying these launchers is not
easy.”
The military war may be swinging in our favor, but the information war continues.
Just as an army needs soldiers, so does a free society need its journalists to ensure that people have access to honest, trustworthy voices to understand the world around them.
For the past five years, The New Voice of Ukraine has been working tirelessly to push back against Russian narratives and defend democracy. But we cannot do it alone.
Please consider supporting us on Patreon for just $5 a month – your donation does directly to supporting journalists and ensuring that this front of the infowar says solid and defended.
Thank you.
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
