“The monthly number of strike drones has been steadily increasing throughout 2024”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
It indicated that the monthly number of strike drones had been steadily increasing throughout 2024, with a significant increase of over 200 units month-on-month since July of this year.
“It is quite likely that in September-November 2024 up to 50-60% of the total number of launches were decoy drones.” Russian troops have at their disposal a variety of decoys. Smaller in size and cheaper than Shahed-class UAVs due to construction materials, they are intended to complicate Ukrainian defenses by saturating or obfuscating the radar picture, forcing Ukrainian air defense teams to work harder, hoping to tire them out over time,” the post stated.
At the same time, some of these systems likely still carry a small payload of up to 5 kilograms of explosives, making them no less dangerous if they hit the target, analysts said.
The British Ministry of Defense emphasizes that the figures for December show a decrease in attacks (about 850 launches), probably due to a change in the weather.
“In the absence of impact on launch sites and production, it is likely that Russia can maintain the number of launches at the level of at least more than 1,500 per month,” the agency summarized.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that over the past week, Russian troops used more than 550 guided aerial bombs, almost 550 unmanned aerial vehicles and 20 missiles to attack Ukraine.
The Russian military regularly attacks Ukrainian regions with various types of weapons – attack UAVs, rockets, anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles.
The leadership of Russia denies that the Russian army during a full-scale war inflicts targeted strikes on the civilian infrastructure of the cities and villages of Ukraine, killing the civilian population and destroying hospitals, schools, kindergartens, energy and water supply facilities.
Ukrainian authorities and international organizations qualify these strikes as war crimes committed by the Russian Federation and emphasize that they are targeted.