According to Ukrainian sources, Russia has obtained close to 3,000 suicide drones from Iran, which can be mobilised at a rate of 100 per day and launch nonstop attacks for three months.
On October 17, Alexey Arestovich, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claimed that Russia had acquired 300 suicide drones (UAVs) from Iran in the initial shipment and had ordered 2,400 more to be delivered soon.
If they mobilise fewer troops or there is a lull in attacks, the Russian army is able to sow chaos for Ukraine for two to three months in a row, which is very bad, he said. “If they deploy about 100 aircraft a day, they can attack Ukraine non-stop for a month,” he said.
Arestovich confirmed that the Ukrainian military had to fire numerous missiles and artillery shells to intercept the suicide UAV because Russian forces “had found the key to breaking past the Ukrainian air defence network.” This presents a significant challenge for our air defence systems, he continued.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has not responded to the information.
The employment of patrol munitions, sometimes known as suicide drones, by Russia, which it claims are provided by Iran to target cities far from the front lines, has recently caused Ukraine to grow more cautious.
In September, Ukraine declared that it had shot down the first Russian suicide drone close to the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkov area. The Iranian Shahed-136 model is extremely identical to this one in terms of design, but the Russian phrase Geran-2 is painted on the tail.
Since then, the number of Russian suicide drone raids has increased. According to some analysts, Russia is using suicide drones in Ukraine to increase the precision of its medium-range strikes because it is running low on conventional guided weapons.
A suicide drone (UAV) strike on the Ukrainian capital Kiev early on October 17 resulted in a sequence of explosions that left at least one person dead and three others injured. On the evening of October 16, a number of explosions were also noted across Ukraine, particularly in the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa.
The claims that Russia and Iran took part in the selling of UAVs have been refuted time and time again. On October 17, the Iranian Foreign Ministry charged Western media with disseminating the information “for political objectives.” The effectiveness of domestic suicide UAVs on the battlefield in Ukraine has also been acknowledged by Russian defence sources.
