Russia’s drone attacks failed to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense – UK intelligence

Russia launches many Iranian UAVs to wear out Ukrainian air defense, but the aggressor country is unlikely to have achieved much success.

The UK Ministry of Defense reports on Twitter, with reference to intelligence data, that in May of this year, Russia launched more than 300 Iranian aerial vehicles of the Shahed series (OWA-UAV) against Ukraine, which became the most intensive use of this weapon system to date.

"Russia is probably launching so many OWA-UAVs in an attempt to force Ukraine to fire stocks of valuable, advanced air defense missiles. Russia is unlikely to have been notably successful: Ukraine has neutralized at least 90% of the incoming OWA-UAVs mostly using its older and cheaper air defense weapons and with electronic jamming," British analysts believe.

Experts added that Russia was also likely trying to identify and strike Ukrainian forces far behind the front lines.

"However, Russia remains very ineffective at hitting such dynamic targets at range because of its poor targeting processes," the intelligence concluded.

Reference

In a previous summary, British intelligence reported that repressions are increasing in Russia when symbols in blue and yellow are used amid the war in Ukraine, which emphasizes insecurity among Russian officials.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) specialists indicate that in Russia, the various levels of government do not coordinate their actions and do not know how to react to the events in the Belgorod region of Russia.