Iranian drones cause “serious damage” of the Armed Forces. They destroy equipment in the Kharkov region and often remain invisible to air defense

WSJ - about the new important element of war in Ukraine

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, having lost the advantage in artillery in the Kharkov region, moved to a new tactic-the positions of the Ukrainian army are now attacking the Iranian-production drones. The impacts of the drones have been causing serious damage to the Armed Forces and in the future can become an effective weapon against Himars volley missile systems. A brief retelling of The Wall Street Journal.

"Geranium" instead of artillery

The Russian army causes serious damage to the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the help of Iranian drones - the first type of weapons of foreign production, a large -scale used by the RF Armed Forces in the war in Ukraine. About this newspaper The Wall Street Journal was told by high -ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to one of them, the artillery commander of the 92nd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Rodion Kulagin, the Shahed-136 drones (Shahid-136), repainted and “branded” by the name “Gerani-2”, began to be massively used in clashes in the north-east of the Kharkov region. The goals of the Kamikadze drones are mainly the positions of armored vehicles and artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Only in the Kulagin brigade, drones, usually attacking in pairs, destroyed two self -propelled howitzers with a caliber of 152 millimeters, two self -propelled howitzers with a caliber of 122 millimeters, as well as two armored personnel carriers.

According to Kulagin, they began to actively use Shaheda of the RF Armed Forces after test launches in the previous month, when the blow was delivered along the M777 howitzer delivered from the United States. Another drone during the same attack was in the hands of the Armed Forces due to the malfunction, the officer added.

The transition to the intensive use of Iranian drones, according to Kulagin, may be associated with the changed course of the war. After the successful attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkov region, Russian forces lost their before the key advantage - superiority in artillery - in a vast territory of several thousand square kilometers that have passed under the control of the Armed Forces during the operation.

Counterweight to Himars

The fact that the latest attacks on Ukrainian positions used the newest model of Shahed, Shahed-136, The Wall Street Journal also told independent military experts, having studied photographs of drones of drones.

The founder and general director of the Consulting company Red Six Solutions Scott Crin noted that the Iranian drones can become a “potential counterweight” in the fight against high -tech arms systems, such as the Himars missile systems, with which the APU was stacked on the infrastructure of the RF Armed Forces. According to the expert, the use of Shahed-136 “certainly changes Kyiv’s operational plans”-due to the stretched line of the front, to defend against the blows of drones will be “hard”.

The flight range of the Shahed-136 is two and a half thousand kilometers-this allows you to attack targets away from the front line. However, while the RF Armed Forces, it seems, do not use them to strike strategic purposes in the depths of the country, noted the British Ministry of Defense in its report on September 14 . According to the agency, on the eve of the Russian forces, probably for the first time carried out a massive attack using Iranian UAVs.

Kulagin in the commentary of The Wall Street Journal also noted that Shaheda is relatively small in size and fly at low altitude, so the air defense systems are difficult to intercept them. The colonel called on the Western allies of Ukraine to more actively supply the country with modern air defense systems or make efforts to prevent the supply of Russian drones.

At the same time, a military analyst from the Washington Institute of Middle Eastern Policy, Michael Knights believes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine quickly adapt to the confrontation of Shahed - according to the expert, the Ukrainian army has quite advanced air defense, so that, after the shock of the first successful drones, to adapt the devices.

Iran's expansion

The use of Shahed in the war in Ukraine is the first large -scale use of these drones outside the Middle East. Israel and Western countries have repeatedly accused Iran and its allies in the region of the attacks of drones for targets in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, as well as to American soldiers in Syria and even on tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

The fact that Russia was interested in Shahed, in July, Jake Sullivan reported the national security adviser to the US Vice President. Negotiations on the purchase of several hundred drones, according to him, representatives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation led during a visit to Iran. At the same time, Iran said that the country has no plans for the supply of UAVs to Russia, since Tehran opposes the war in Ukraine. Russian troops and officials officially did not comment on the information.

On September 8, the United States imposed sanctions against the Iranian company SafiRan Airport Services for the supply of drones and equipment for them, as well as against manufacturers of drones Paravar Pars, Dama and Baharetan Kish.