On May 3, the Russian presidential press service reported on an attempt by drones to attack the presidential residence in the Kremlin. What is known about the arsenal of UAF drones and which models are capable of hitting Moscow – in the Russian media review.
What happened
According to the Russian leader’s press service, an attempted strike on the Kremlin building took place on the night of May 3, following which Russian military personnel and special services disabled two drones. The Moscow official called the incident a “terrorist act” on the eve of Victory Day and an attempt on the life of President Vladimir Putin, who is supported by Ukrainian authorities. Russia reserves the right to respond to an attempted strike on the Kremlin where and when it sees fit, the president’s press office said in a statement.
Amid the attack on the Kremlin, the Russian capital has banned the launching of drones, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on May 3. In the following days to forbid on the use of drones has been introduced in a total of several dozen regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied Kiev’s involvement in the drone attacks. “We are not attacking Putin or Moscow, we are fighting on our territory, we are defending our villages and towns. We don’t even have enough weapons for that… Therefore, we didn’t attack Putin, we will leave that to the (international) court,” he said.
What drones do the armed forces have
This drone is a modified version of a Soviet-made UAV. The Tu-141 has a flight range of 1,000 km and a speed of over 1,000 km/h. Swifts were originally used as aerial reconnaissance vehicles, but modified versions can be used de facto as a guided missile.
Today, the Ukrainian armed forces have up to 100 such devices, argued former head of the Russian Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces Sergey Khatylev. Although their service life has already expired, Ukraine has documentation for resuming production of such equipment, the expert admitted.
It is assumed that it was the Tu-141s that were used by Ukraine, in particular, for attacks at military airfields in the Ryazan and Saratov regions in December 2022. Investigators also found the wreckage of this drone at the site of the explosion in Kireevsk, Tula region, informed CASS.
The range of this Turkish-made drone is 300 km. Since the beginning of hostilities, Ukraine has received more than 30 drones, writing Bloomberg in January, citing data from Dutch defense analytics and military research website Oryx. As of December 2021, i.e. two months before the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the agency reported that Kyiv bought more than 10 Turkish-made drones.
Ukraine is also armed with American-made kamikaze drones – Switchblade 600 with a range of 40 km. Previously, Ukraine received a lighter version of this drone, the Switchblade 300, from the United States.
Attack drone “Ukroboronprom”
In January, the Ukrainian company “Ukroboronprom” argued that the first tests of the Ukrainian strike drone with a 75 kg warhead and a range of up to 1000 km were successful. It is assumed that the new drone will use special ammunition developed by the company’s partners.
Ukraine is developing long-range drones, the large-scale use of which can begin during the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counteroffensive, military expert Vladislav Shurygin told Russian media. After the outbreak of hostilities, Kyiv was unable to produce drones in sufficient quantities due to the destruction of factories. “But this does not mean that it has completely disappeared. That is, somewhere in the beginning of autumn they decided to move production to the territory of Poland’s neighboring countries, Czechoslovakia, first of all. Accordingly, the bet on drones is of course very important for the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, said expert.
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