US publication Politico reports that Iranian-Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become a “huge problem” for the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).
The newspaper spoke to a number of Ukrainian military officials who told reporters that the new Iranian-Russian drones are causing great damage to the Ukrainian side. Russia’s deployment of Shahed (kamikaze drone) and Mohajer (strike UAV) drones, the paper wrote, “has had devastating results”.
“Some struck combat positions, crushing tanks and armoured vehicles, while others struck civilian infrastructure, including in the port city of Odessa,” Politico reported.
Iranian drones are relatively small and fly at low altitudes, evading the base mass of air defences. They can be shot down by the US Stinger MANPADS, but only during the day, as these weapons have no night vision system, the Ukrainian army told Politico. The Ukrainian military stressed that the Iranian drones have become particularly effective against Toyota pickup trucks, which are actively used by the AFU in north-eastern Ukraine.
“The Toyotas are used by the Ukrainian infantry because of the lack of standard armoured vehicles, the publication specifies, but they are extremely vulnerable from the air.
The emergence of new Iranian-Russian drones also complicates combat operations in old Soviet tanks, which lack a modern fire-extinguishing system. AFU servicemen say that drones recently flew in from the Crimean area destroyed two AFU tanks with crews inside near Kherson.
We shall remind you that the US publication The New York Times earlier published an article in which servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces acknowledged the effectiveness of new kamikaze drones used by the Russian army.
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