Russian air attacks are changing with the appearance of jet drones and modernized “banderoles.” It is important to understand several key things here.
1. Such drones are mainly launched by Russians into the central part of the country. A jet engine consumes significantly more fuel, so a jet drone with a standard warhead usually does not reach the western regions. Of course, the fuel tank can be enlarged, but this would require reducing the amount of explosives, limiting the range of targets against which it can be used.
2. Jet drone technology is not unique. Jet engines are freely available on Chinese marketplaces, making them accessible to both Russia and Ukraine.
The main reason why Russia didn’t use jet drones earlier is their cost. A single jet engine costs more than a previous-generation Shahed. If a target can be hit with a cheaper piston-engine drone, there is no point in using an expensive jet drone.
But after Ukrainian air defense learned to effectively shoot down cheap drones, Russia has significantly reduced their use and switched to jets.
The same is expected for Ukrainian long-range drones. As long as Russia has not learned to effectively shoot down the current generation of Ukrainian drones, there is no economic sense in switching to more expensive jet drones. However, sooner or later, Russia will learn. And then such a transition will become practically inevitable.
3. There are currently no serial Ukrainian interceptor drones. Manufacturers are demonstrating prototypes that have already successfully shot down Geran-5, but they have not yet reached mass production, primarily due to a lack of funding.
If interceptor drones become available in October, the next step will involve training crews for their use and reformatting the current air defense system, which is tuned to detect previous-generation drones.
Western media wrote: if with normal Shaheds the crew had about a minute to launch an interceptor, with jet ones this time is reduced to 6 seconds.
This means significantly more mobile air defense groups will be needed, tasks will be more complex, and therefore, recruiting people for training needs to begin now. How long it will take to prepare interceptor operators is unknown. But even if it involves training already experienced operators, it could take a month or more.
This outlines an optimistic timeframe for when Ukraine can begin to increase its effectiveness against jet drones — not before November.
At the same time, the financing issue needs to be addressed. Jet drones are several times more expensive. It is believed that their production had a decisive impact on increasing the Russian military budget by 30%. Ukrainian interceptor drones will also be more expensive, and judging by Volodymyr Zelensky’s statements about a $27 billion deficit, there may not be enough funds to scale their production. This is likely why Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara today appealed to EU countries with a proposal to join in financing their production. I am confident that the money will be found, but the reasons why we began to address this issue only now raise certain questions.
Clearly, the appearance of jet drones and “banderoles” is not a turning point, but just another stage of the war. Over time, it will change to another, and we all are eagerly awaiting the Ukrainian mass missile.
Attacks with jet “Shaheds” cannot change the situation on the front line and do not bring Russia closer to victory. But it affects the situation in rear cities. And in fact, this is one of the main bets of the Kremlin now: unable to defeat our military, Putin is trying to move the war to where peaceful people — children and adults, women and men, ordinary scientists, doctors, communicators, etc. — become the targets instead of military objectives. Ordinary chaotic terror that Putin is not ashamed to demonstrate as a subject of pride of a deranged psychopath.
But wars are not won with terror, and any technological advantage always has a temporary nature.
In the cover photo: Russian jet drone “Geran-5,” capable of speeds up to 600 km/h. Photo: The occupiers’ media
