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I am confused how it managed to go through two NATO countries skies for over 600 KM in a state of heightened alert.
I don't trust either Ukraine nor Russia in this matter. I can see Ukraine using it for surveillance and the drone going haywire. I also can see Russia using it as SAM bait but the drone flying off all up to Croatia. I am confused how it managed to go through two NATO countries skies for over 600 KM in a state of heightened alert.
Being small, having a low RCS, and flying low enough to evade radar, means that most states probably had difficulties tracking it accurately. Romania claimed they saw it on radar for only 3 minutes. [1].
https://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-defense-25428132-drona-ucrainea...
I mean, why would Ukraine launch a drone westwards, anyway? More likely the Russians are using old hardware, because the new stuff was all propaganda and doesn’t actually work - and has supply chain dependencies in the west, and can’t be replaced.
Maybe it works but it's ludicrously complex and expensive for them to manufacture, plus it's unproven reliability in combat means it's safer and cheaper to use what's been thoroughly tested.
I don't trust either Ukraine nor Russia in this matter. I can see Ukraine using it for surveillance and the drone going haywire. I also can see Russia using it as SAM bait but the drone flying off all up to Croatia. I am confused how it managed to go through two NATO countries skies for over 600 KM in a state of heightened alert.
I can imagine that 1980's equipment is trivial to jam these days for most armed forces.
More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.
I don't trust either Ukraine nor Russia in this matter. I can see Ukraine using it for surveillance and the drone going haywire. I also can see Russia using it as SAM bait but the drone flying off all up to Croatia. I am confused how it managed to go through two NATO countries skies for over 600 KM in a state of heightened alert.
- NATO is on a heightened state of alert, but that doesn't mean they will go around shooting down aircraft. It may have been observed on its trajectory, but not intercepted or simply not shot down.
- There has been repeated video of Ukrainian flown Byaktar drones conducting direct line of sight air strikes against large Russian air defense such as the BUK system. There is a possibility that low-observability features in drones are good and cheap enough that low cost drones are temporarily immune to alerted air defense. This could be due to both economics where the air defense missile costs to much to use it against a drone (less likely) or the air defense isn't designed to target small low-observability objects (more likely).
A Byaktar drone costs ~1 million dollars, you can buy 3-4 of them for the cost of the US Navies SM-6 missile for air defense.
I mean, why would Ukraine launch a drone westwards, anyway? More likely the Russians are using old hardware, because the new stuff was all propaganda and doesn’t actually work - and has supply chain dependencies in the west, and can’t be replaced.
South-westwards(?), more than 500km in the wrong direction. But accidents do happen, of course.
It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.
It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.