Russia is building radar-resistant long-range attack drones in Alabuga, Tatarstan, using stealth-absorbing tech.
Attack drones are reshaping modern warfare across the world, providing militaries with a cutting-edge and cheap option to target a location, a moving object, or a flying object with precision. Unmanned aerial vehicles offer several benefits when compared to conventional aerial attack options, which are mainly aircraft and missiles that are far more expensive than drones.
Losing an aircraft or missiles in a combat scenario can actually hamper the war budget, while the use of drones gives military powers options to remain on the battleground for a longer time.Now, reports have emerged that Russia is producing long-range attack drones in Alabuga, Tatarstan. Moscow has established production lines for Shahed drones that were purchased a few years ago from Iran.Drones get new coating to resist detection by radarRussia, which previously launched huge numbers of missiles against Ukraine, appears to have switched to using massive numbers of drones. On June 1, the Russian military reportedly launched 472 unmanned one-way attack drones overnight against Ukraine. While on May 26, they used 355 drones against Kyiv, and on May 18, 298 Shahed drones were used.Initially purchased from Iran, Russia has been building such drones for the past many months. Reports have revealed that Moscow is now coating these drones in carbon to resist detection by radar as it absorbs incoming waves instead of reflecting them back. It’s also being claimed that SIM cards are also integrated in these drones to transmit data back to Russia through mobile networks.Warheads used in these Shahed drones are reportedly upgraded now. Recently, Kyiv claimed that Shaheds were using newer incendiary and fragmentation warheads. These can start fires and spread large volumes of shrapnel respectively to increase their effectiveness, according to a report.Decoy Shahed drones being usedRussia is also using decoy Shahed drones to engage Ukrainian air defense systems, which can’t see a difference between the decoy and the original one. The system will finally shoot them down, giving some time for other drones to enter restricted airspace.In early May, officials from Kyiv highlighted that 40% of incoming Shaheds were decoys.It has also appeared that Moscow is using drones that can be operated via fiber optic cables instead of radio signals. Drones that are operated via fiber optic cables are largely immune to electronic countermeasures, reported Politico.“Russians are scaling up not only the production of drones but also the means of radio-electronic warfare,” said Andriy Ukrainian army commander.“At our part of the front, radio frequencies change every two weeks. So, when the state supplies us with drones, only about 20 percent of them are usable. We constantly have to spend additional funds and time to reconfigure those drones.”The use of low-cost drones gives Russia an option to launch hundreds of such UAVs every month at targets across Ukraine with little concern about how many are lost along the way. Meanwhile, the defender is stuck figuring out how to shoot all incoming drones down at a reasonable cost indefinitely, reported The Conversation.
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