Russia’s ‘UAV swarm’ tactic exhausted Ukraine’s air defense

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on November 24 that Russia had launched 460 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against the country in just the past week. The Ukrainian military general staff previously said it faced 2,023 Geran series long-range suicide UAVs and an unknown type of aircraft in October, nearly three times the level of 700 in September.

This may be part of a campaign codenamed “Dummy Target” recently deployed by Russia, which combines a small number of UAVs carrying lethal warheads with dozens of low-cost aircraft acting as decoys.

Lure vehicles are often made from lightweight materials such as plywood and foam, to simplify production and reduce costs. Each one is equipped with metal-coated balls to increase the radar reflection area, with identification characteristics no different from the Geran-2 suicide UAV on the radar screens of Ukrainian soldiers.

“The herd-style coordination tactic is intended to cause more confusion for Ukrainian air defense when they have to decide which target to shoot down in a short time. They cannot distinguish between almost harmless decoys and Geran-2s carrying heads.” “Really lethal bullets,” an anonymous source with knowledge of Russia’s UAV manufacturing industry revealed AP mid-month.

Some Ukrainian officials and soldiers also admitted the difficult situation when dealing with Russian UAV swarms.

“Each aircraft is just a dot of light with flight direction and altitude data on the radar screen. We have no way to accurately identify their properties, so we have to take down the entire target. The enemy often uses decoys.” bait to attract attention,” admitted Yuri Ignat, former Ukrainian air force spokesman.

Ukrainian soldier nicknamed Rosmaryn claimed to have shot down dozens of Russian suicide UAVs over the past two years, including foam decoys. “We cannot understand the type of UAV while it is still flying, we can only determine its true nature after taking down the target,” this soldier said.

Serhii Beskrestnov, a military expert on Ukrainian radio technology, estimates that decoys now account for more than half of Russian UAVs targeting the country.

Since the beginning of this summer, Ukraine has announced that most of Russia’s suicide UAVs were shot down or lost their way and crashed due to jamming. According to AP, only 6% of Russian UAVs have hit Ukrainian targets in air strikes since the end of July. However, that number of aircraft passing through the air defense net is still enough to cause significant damage.

Russia’s ability to manufacture suicide UAVs also actively supports this tactic. Ukrainian intelligence sources say that Moscow has opened two factories manufacturing Geran series UAVs in the Alabuga special economic zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, about 1,300 km from the border, and achieves output of hundreds of units per week.

The West believes that this special economic zone was significantly expanded after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, in which some facilities switched completely to manufacturing defense materials. David Albright, an expert at the US-based Institute for Science and International Security, said that the Alabuga special zone is currently only focusing on producing suicide UAVs for the Russian Ministry of Defense.

The plan to manufacture two lines of UAVs in parallel not only exhausts Ukraine’s air defense network, but also helps Russia save defense costs and maximize output. An anonymous source revealed that each factory in the Alabuga special zone can produce 10 Geran-2 armed UAVs for $50,000, along with 40 cheaper decoy UAVs per day.

Russia also constantly changes its attack plan, typically sending UAVs to fly first to force Ukraine’s air defense to open fire and run out of ammunition, then launch ballistic and cruise missiles at key targets.

In addition to causing chaos and attracting firepower, some decoy UAVs also become eyes and ears for reconnaissance forces. They can carry optical-electronic sensors and data transmission lines directly connected to the control crew, helping them locate air defense positions and build a map of the enemy’s defense network.

The Ukrainian Air Defense Command has repeatedly detected UAVs returning to Russian airspace in large-scale attacks, seemingly being target spotting aircraft flying back to base for reuse.

The Geran-2 line is also constantly being improved to increase efficiency, in which the latest version carrying a thermobaric warhead is becoming a new headache for the Ukrainian military. High temperatures of 2,500-3,000 degrees Celsius and sudden pressure changes from the explosion of this type of warhead can destroy many mechanized vehicles, while also causing damage to soldiers sheltering in narrow spaces.

According to Albright, the Russian UAV carrying a thermobaric warhead is also stuffed with a large amount of metal balls to cause maximum damage, especially effective in attacks targeting infrastructure works.

Beskrestnov said Russia first launched Geran-2 UAVs carrying thermobaric warheads into Ukraine since early summer, and they accounted for 3-5% of the aircraft used in each raid. “This type of warhead is capable of destroying a large building and is especially effective if Russia attacks power plants,” Beskrestnov said.

Geran-2 is said to be a variant produced by Russia based on the Shahed-136 suicide UAV developed by Iran. Each aircraft has a flight range of 2,500 km, a cruise speed of 185 km/h, and is equipped with a warhead weighing 50 kg or 90 kg depending on the version.

Russia first used Geran-2 in a series of air strikes at the end of 2022, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and key facilities. Ukrainian soldiers and sources in Russia said engineers are constantly testing and applying new technologies to “put Russia in a pioneering position in UAV manufacturing”.