The sole fact of the russian federation using foreign drones to sustain the war in Ukraine is "extraordinary", believes Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.
In an interview to the "Orestokratia" YouTube channel, the head of Ukraine’s defense ministry intelligence service explained, that russian forces operating in Ukraine use Shahed-136 drones acquired from Iran as a last resort option as their own long-range missile stocks fall short.
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"It was facilitated by the unsatisfactory quality in terms of accuracy of russian missiles, and also by the shortage of those," Budanov said. Most types of missiles spent during the entire invasion of Ukraine face a deficit reaching "critical levels", or below 30% of the pre-war totality of missiles.
At the same time, russian defense industry suffering from Western sanctions cannot keep up with the demand.
"For example, as for Iskander missiles, they’ve reached the 13% mark [of the total number] available. They should have not fallen below 30 percent," Budanov said, as such reckless spending makes the country vulnerable to other threats. "But the war made some adjustments, and here is the reality".
Instead, there are the Iranian loitering munitions, the so-called kamikaze drones, that are available in large quantities and are more precise on top of that. However, they won’t be able to replace the missiles, Budanov noted.
According to the intelligence, the first batch of drones ordered by russia from Iran consisted of 1750 units, and there were more to follow. As Budanov explained, russia is ordering new batches, while the Iranians are emptying their stocks and producing more.
On the other hand, he said, Ukrainian air defense consistently takes down about 70% of all Shahed’s launched by russian forces, and Ukraine is constantly pushing the request on modern anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to neutralize even more of them.
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