Yevhen Dyky, a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war and former company commander of the Aidar battalion, explained why the occupying forces attack Ukraine every night with Shahed drones, despite the fact that most of them are destroyed by air defense systems.
In his opinion, the daily raids of the "shaheed" deplete not only the morale of Ukrainians, but also the stockpile of anti-aircraft missiles. "Not all "shahedis" are killed by mobile groups with machine guns," said Dykiy on Radio NV. He emphasized that destroying drones with machine guns is "cheap and angry", but in each large-scale attack, air defense forces are forced to use expensive assets such as MiG-29s and F-16s, as well as man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems (MANPADS).
"These Shaheds are depleting our resource, which could be used for more serious threats, such as cruise missiles, which are much less," the expert added.
Dyky also emphasized the cooperation between Russia and Iran in the production of drones. According to him, the occupiers were able to reach the planned production rate of 600 "shaheeds" per month, while the production of cruise missiles is limited to a few dozen.
According to information, in three weeks of September, the Russian invaders used a record number of drones of the Shahed-131/136 type, but their effectiveness turned out to be low - less than 3% of the targets were hit. Putin announced plans to increase the production of drones in 2024 to 1.4 million units.
Aviation expert Anatoly Khrapchynsky notes that Russia wants air alarms to sound constantly in Ukraine, which confirms its intentions to increase the production of drones. The occupiers' tactics are becoming clearer: by exhausting Ukrainian air defenses, they are trying to reduce the effectiveness of the country's defense and prepare the ground for more serious attacks.
