Over the course of May 2023, russia launched over 300 Iranian Shahed series one way attack unmanned aerial vehicles (OWA-UAVs) against Ukraine: its most intense use of this weapon system to date, the UK Defense Intelligence reports.
Russia is probably launching so many OWA-UAVs in an attempt to force Ukraine to fire stocks of valuable, advanced air defence missiles.
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Russia is unlikely to have been notably successful: Ukraine has neutralized at least 90% of the incoming OWA-UAVs mostly using its older and cheaper air defence weapons and with electronic jamming.
According to the UK Defense Intelligence, russia has also likely been attempting to locate and strike Ukrainian forces well behind the front line. However, russia remains very ineffective at hitting such dynamic targets at range because of its poor targeting processes.
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