"This Is Not Really Good News for Us": Russia Has Started to Use Repainted Iranian Drones on the Battlefield – Zhdanov
Russia has started to use Iranian kamikaze drones against the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The UAVs were repainted and renamed from Shahed-136 to Geran-2.
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These are small drones flying at the low altitudes, so they are difficult to detect and shot down using Ukrainian air defence system, Oleh Zhdanov, the military expert, says in a video on his YouTube channel.
"Russia has started to use repainted and renamed Iranian drones on the battlefield. Now they are called “Geran-2”. These are the loitering ammunitions, i.e. so-called kamikaze drones. Their quantity is unknown, but unfortunately they are already used for hard-kill actions on the battlefield”, he says.
Zhdanov refers to the article in The Wall Street Journal, where the author claims that Russia has purchased significant quantities of such drones from Iran, and now they are posing a substantial threat for Ukrainian personnel and military hardware.
"Since the last week, Russian kamikaze drones Shahed-136, repainted and renamed into “Geran-2”, have been actively used against Ukrainian armored vehicles and artillery systems in the north-eastern part of Kharkiv Region, i.e. they started to use the drones in the areas, which are still controlled by the Russian troops. According to a representative of one of our brigades, these drones destroyed two our SAU-152, two SAU-122 and two armored personnel vehicles in his area of responsibility”, the military expert continues.
According to Zhdanov, the problem with these drones are that they have small dimensions and fly at the relatively low altitudes, so Ukrainian air defence systems are facing difficulties with detecting them.
The expert also notes that the recent package of the U.S. military technical aid includes the anti-UAV systems, and “these small anti-drone guns will be most likely used against these small low-flying loitering munitions”.
"Still, we are getting more and more confirmations that they have purchased not 10, not even several dozens of these drones, as we expected, but much more, and the Russian side is now actively using them, which is not really good news for us”, the expert summarized.
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