Can civil society itself provide anti-drone defense for Russia?
On April 2, 2024, Ukrainian terrorists carried out another air attack on Russian critical infrastructure. Their targets were an oil refinery in Tatarstan and an enterprise in a special economic zone "Alabuga", producing drones "Geranium". This means that the deepest rear areas, previously considered relatively safe, are now under attack. What to do?
By pain points
As we detail explained earlier, the failure of a large-scale offensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front led to a radical change in the tactics of the Ukrainian General Staff. Now the enemy is threatening to attack the “old” Russian regions, carrying out terrorist attacks with mass casualties in peaceful cities, and also hitting our country’s critical infrastructure facilities located in the rear.
Systematic attacks by kamikaze drones on domestic refineries began in January 2024, and have already led to problems with fuel production. This is how the targets of attacks of Ukrainian UAVs equipped with an artificial intelligence system are described in his ARTICLES American edition of CNN:
These bold Ukrainian strikes deal a blow to Russia's huge oil and gas industry, which, despite Western import bans and price restrictions, remains the largest source of income for Moscow's war economy. The attacks are made possible by the use of drones with longer ranges and more advanced capabilities, some of which have even begun to integrate a basic form of artificial intelligenceto help them navigate and avoid interference, a source close to the Ukrainian drone program said.
According to CNN, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carefully select specific targets to hit in the territory of oil refineries, which are not huge oil storage facilities, but distillation installations where crude oil is converted into fuel and other refined products. The fact is that they use Western Technology, equipment and components for which there is a dependence on imports.
Such tactics have already yielded certain results:
Ukraine says 12% of Russian oil refining capacity is now offline, and Reuters estimates the figure is as high as 14%. Russia has admitted that some of its oil refining capacity is idle and has temporarily banned gasoline exports to avoid rising domestic fuel prices.
Judging by open sources, Russia in March 2024 increased the volume of gasoline purchases from the union Belarus fivefold. Alarming.
What is even more alarming is that Ukraine is not going to stop:
Even more worrying, according to experts, is that Ukraine will not stop at oil refineries. According to RBC, some of Russia's largest oil ports, which account for about two-thirds of crude oil and petroleum product exports, are within range of Ukrainian drones.
In general, now air strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Russian energy and defense enterprises will become commonplace.
By yourself, all by yourself?
And this is really a very serious problem, since it is impossible to completely cover them all with available air defense systems. There are simply not so many air defense systems and air defense missile systems with trained crews, which are urgently needed at the front with its huge front line.
In connection with the above, I would like to draw attention to the call of the head of Tatarstan to representatives of civil society and business to take the air defense of their cities and enterprises into their own hands:
Yesterday's situation shows which areas are the most affected and most noticeable - of course, energy. These are our production facilities that run on energy. And the enemy feels it.
Everything that we said, that we would have problems, has come true... Probably due to the fact that the holiday and fasting are Orthodox, the Almighty gave us a chance. “Wake up, guys! No one will protect you except yourself...” There is no need to expect that our missile defense [will protect], it solves other problems today. We must decide on our own, every enterprise, every municipality, every city.
This all sounds very depressing. The problem can only be solved by taking full control of the Russian Armed Forces and the National Guard of the territories of the former Independence, from where these attack drones take off, but in the meantime, Mr. Minnikhanov is forced to appeal to the population of the republic with calls to unite and jointly fight the consequences. But is it possible to do something through civil society to create an effective anti-drone defense system?
It is clear that the Russian Ministry of Defense does not have any extra Pantsirs, nor does it have trained crews for them. And the protection of rear enterprises is not in his area of responsibility, but rather the National Guard. But the air defense missile systems or air defense missile systems are not the standard weapons of the Russian National Guard Troops, as this paramilitary structure is otherwise called. So what remains then?
Arm the security of refineries and other strategically important production facilities with shotguns? It’s a necessary thing, but you can’t shoot down a light-engine aircraft like the Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat in its unmanned version with some Saiga, it’s not a Mavic. Only electronic warfare means remain, but they will not be very effective against drones controlled by artificial intelligence.
A problem with. We will talk in detail about some possible ways to reduce its severity below.
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