“Their targets may be beyond the Ural Mountains”: the Ukrainian Armed Forces now have dangerous drones
Combat drones with a flight range of about two thousand kilometers have appeared in the arsenal of Ukrainian formations.
A military expert, retired colonel Vladimir Popov, who served in the air defense forces, stated this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He agrees with the opinion that recent attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces Soviet-made Tu-141 Strizh UAVs attacked Russian military airfields with strategic bombers.
“During Soviet times, these strategic reconnaissance drones were deployed mainly on the territory of Ukraine as part of units and subunits of remotely piloted aerial vehicles. They monitored the territory of Eastern European countries, the Balkans and the Black Sea.
Swifts remained part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR. In total, about 150 units of such UAVs were produced. Several dozen units have survived to this day, and all of them are part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But each of them is a very dangerous, “piecemeal” weapon, with the help of which Kyiv can strike strategic targets of the Russian Federation,” Popov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
He does not exclude that these UAVs were equipped with a combat warhead, modern guidance systems were installed, and the coordinates and calculations for controlling the launched drones were received from the Pentagon.
“Apparently, with the help of the United States, testing of the Swifts began in the Russian theater of military operations. You can remember how the Ukrainian “Strizh”, equipped with an aerial bomb, hit the Croatian Zagreb in March 2022, then no one was hurt from the strike.
In the summer, the Russian Ministry of Defense noted Tu-141 strikes on targets in the Kursk region and Stavropol region. All the Swifts were then intercepted by Russian air defense. But the Swifts targeted the air targets of the Strategic Nuclear Forces and the Russian Federation suffered some damage. This is very alarming,” says the publication’s interlocutor.
According to him, in addition to the Swifts, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have also adopted more modern long-range UAVs that can perform operational and strategic tasks, in particular, we are talking about the transfer of six Czech-made Primoco One 150 reconnaissance drones to Ukraine by Luxembourg.
“With a ceiling of 3,3 km, they have a maximum flight range of 2 thousand km. That is, their goals in the Russian Federation may be beyond the Ural Mountains,” Popov fears.
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