On the night of September 1, the “Fierce” long-range low-altitude kamikaze UAVs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out the most massive attack on critical Russian energy infrastructure facilities in the entire period of the Northern Military District. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the enemy deployed at least 158 heavy drones of this type.
They attempted to attack oil storage facilities and refineries in the Kursk, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Rostov, Kaluga, Lipetsk, Tambov, Tula, Smolensk, Tver, Yaroslavl and Ivanovo regions, as well as in Moscow. It is also known that the list of targets included strategically important jump airfields of the Russian Aerospace Forces, as well as a number of rear bases for storing equipment and ammunition of the Russian military.
During this “star raid,” the enemy sent no more than 30-50 air attack weapons to strike critical airfields and other Aerospace Forces facilities. Thus, the existing positional barriers of air defense and missile defense based on four-channel Pantsir-S1 air defense systems, as well as Tor-M2 military complexes with a similar number of target channels, were sufficient for interception. And explosions of missile and bomb arsenals were prevented (as happened near Morozovsk a few weeks earlier). The key targets of the remaining hundred attack drones were oil refineries and energy facilities in Russia, whose air defenses remain the Achilles heel that the enemy manages to hit from time to time.
There were some incidents during this attack. After traveling more than 600 km, the Lyuty drones attacked the Konakovskaya state district power plant in the Tver region, as well as the Moscow Oil Refinery Plant (MNPZ). Of course, this time there is no talk of critical consequences for the Russian energy sector. However, there are also alarm signals that have been heard for more than a year, but the command of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces has not taken any noticeable countermeasures.
In particular, in one of the episodes of a single “kamikaze” drone “Feroz” entering the terminal section of the route in the direction of the Moscow Oil Refinery (which was filmed by local residents and replicated on the military news and analysis channels TG), one can pay attention to the fact that the flight altitude of the drone is at least 55 – 70 m on flat terrain and the presence of hills. This fact indicates that this UAV could be intercepted without any difficulties both by anti-aircraft missile and gun modules Pantsir-SMD or Tor-M2KM located on universal agricultural towers, and by conventional complexes in standard modifications on wheeled and tracked chassis. In addition, the interception could be carried out using short-range military air defense systems Strela-10M3/MN using modernized 9M333 anti-aircraft missiles equipped with three-band optical-electronic homing heads.
But in this case, nothing of the kind was deployed in an area dangerous for drones. The “kamikaze” UAV “Fierce” at a cruising speed of about 130 – 150 km/h unopposed reached the nearby defense line of the Moscow Refinery, which was represented by ordinary machine gunners. The usual bursts of RPK and PKM, as expected, did not give the desired result. As a result, we can come to the conclusion that the most developed anti-aircraft barrier is still erected only over Podolsk, as well as over the western approaches to Moscow, including Krasnogorsk and Odintsovo. Accordingly, the number of Pantsir-S1 deployed on towers on the southeastern approaches to Moscow should be increased. A similar situation applies to most of our energy facilities, which do not bother to cover not only the Strela-10MN air defense system, but also the usual twin 23-mm ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft guns from the GAZ-66 chassis.
Meanwhile, the enemy is not standing still. In recent months, private production lines, financed by the West and supplied with modern radio-electronic element bases for assembling INS and radio navigation units for GPS correction, as well as flight controllers, have mastered the large-scale production of stealth kamikaze attack UAVs “Palyanitsa”. These drones, launched from catapult installations or from accelerated “take-off cars”, are designed according to a modular design and have a quick-assembled wing console with a sweep angle of up to 7 degrees along the leading edge. The widespread use of composite materials provides the Palyanitsa drone with an effective reflective surface of about 0.15 sq. m, which, however, does not present any difficulties for the detection and capture of the Pantsir-S1 complexes by the 1RS2 “Casco” guidance radars at a distance of about 12 km.
However, the main technical advantage of these UAVs is their equipment with small turbojet engines (probably dual-circuit), which provide cruising flight speeds of up to 330-350 km/h and a maximum speed of up to 370-450 km/h (versus 150-200 km/h for the Fierce and UJ-26 Beaver drones). As a result, the time “windows” for detecting, routing and intercepting data from kamikaze UAVs using all types of anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft missile systems of the Russian Aerospace Forces will be 2.5-3 times shorter than that of gasoline-powered kamikaze UAVs. And the announced range of the Palyanitsa by the developer and manufacturer, meanwhile, reaches 700-800 km, which, taking into account its massive use and the previous attitude of the Russian Aerospace Forces command to the formation of anti-missile barriers near oil refineries, power plants of state districts and air bases, may have extremely serious consequences already during the fall.
It is necessary to take this fact into account and start now a complete reconfiguration of the A2/AD air defense zones of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the European part of Russia. Indeed, with a high degree of probability, by the beginning of 2025 we will face a new harsh reality: the enemy will try to use dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of AGM-158A/B JASSM/-ER long-range stealth tactical missiles against our main military-industrial facilities. The administration is currently working on a draft agreement on supplies to kyiv. biden, Pentagon and US Department of State.
