Commander of the electronic warfare service of the russian Aerospace Forces, Dmitry Bogdanov, said Ukraine supposedly has unmanned aerial vehicles that can attack a target 2,500 km from the launch point.
"Now, unmanned aerial vehicles allow you to cover a distance of up to 2,500 km, and many [russian] regions know about it," he stated while attending the Integrated Security international salon in Moscow.
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On the one hand, this statement by the head of the EW department of the russian air force could be intentionally misleading, especially since it was voiced at an "international" event, in an attempt to stand out and demonstrate his readiness to act in advance and prevent phantom threats.
On the other hand, it might be a sign that the russian military is actually concerned about the possibility and is actively preparing for such long-range strikes: identifying probable targets, organizing air cover for them, allocating air defense equipment, etc. Although, the previous drone strikes on various strategically important facilities in russia reaching over a thousand kilometers from Ukrainian soil have demonstrated that as of now, the russian armed forces do not have enough air defense equipment to cover all potential targets.
Ukraine, in turn, has never officially confirmed or indicated having any drones capable of autonomously traveling as far as 2,500 km. One of Kyiv's recently disclosed unpiloted aerial weapons is the Ninja attack drone, which became public after it scored a successful hit on an oil refinery deep in russian territory at a record-breaking distance of 1,400 km from the Ukrainian border. Another development, the Liutyi UAV, with its farthest record set at 900 km holds the lead in terms of price/quality/range/accuracy ratio.
In addition, earlier this week, when a Ukrainian drone struck the Voronezh-M radar, the media claimed it had covered a distance of 1,800 km and thus set a new general record for attack range of Ukrainian kamikaze drones.
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