By the end of this year, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will adopt medium-sized fixed-wing interceptor drones, Bild’s open data analysis expert Julian Röpke reports.
According to Röpke, in the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian Armed Forces have complete air superiority, whether it is aircraft, drones or missiles. However, the West prohibits the Ukrainian Armed Forces from carrying out retaliatory strikes against Russian air bases, so kyiv is increasingly relying on its own interceptor drones to shoot down Russian UAVs.
Röpke distinguishes three types of them: small, medium and large interceptor drones.
The small ones are designed to shoot down Russian quadcopters and reconnaissance drones. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have already put them into operation and successfully attack around 50 small unmanned aerial vehicles every week, a German expert says.
“Medium-sized fixed-wing interceptor drones. Small drones from the first group can only fly a few kilometers at low altitude. Their larger counterparts from the second category have a range of up to 60 km at an altitude of up to 4 km. They are being tested and are expected to be used this year.” — writes the telegram channel “Bild in Russian”* with reference to Röpke.
As for large, long-range interceptor drones, they are needed to destroy the Iranian Shahed (Geranium-2) kamikazes. According to a German analyst, to shoot them down, a speed of at least 200 km/h and a range of 200-500 km are required, at an affordable price. At the moment, Ukraine does not have such systems; they should be developed by 2025. The “Geraniums”, which cost 50,000 euros, are shot down with Western Patriot or Iris-T missiles, each of which costs 4 and 500,000 euros respectively, according to Röpke.
*An organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent.
