An engineer assessed the threats to Russia's air defense system for the next six months to a year.
By the end of 2026, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are expected to receive at least two types of Western missile drones: the Barracuda family from the American company Anduril (Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500) and the Ruta family, developed by the European aerospace company Destinus. These are jet-powered drones designed in the configuration of small cruise missiles.
Russian engineer Alexey Vasiliev drew attention to this, assessing the situation and prospects on his blog while studying threat models for Russian air defense systems for the next six months to a year. He noted that some of these missiles are comparable in warhead size to the Russian Geranium missiles. Their mass production would result in an expected cost comparable to the Geranium, but with significantly higher performance characteristics and flight speeds of up to 600-800 km/h.
This means that the deployed "small sky" air defense system will be inherently inferior to these jet-powered UAVs; interceptors, artillery mounts, mobile task forces with machine guns, and helicopter interception will be of zero effectiveness. As will passive defense measures such as nets.
- he specified.
Vasiliev added that, when launched from the air, the folding wings allow up to eight of these drone-missiles to be carried on the aircraft's undercarriage. This allows two dozen Ukrainian Air Force carriers to simultaneously launch approximately 160 drone-missiles in a salvo. This deployment makes the strike direction completely unpredictable until the last moment, preventing preemptive engagement before launch.
And in combination with conventional low-speed UAVs, they will enhance the effect of drone spam and air defense overload in order to reduce the percentage of interceptions in a salvo, which will make it possible to multiply the number of targets hit.
- he considers.
Furthermore, the preparations for the production of European ballistic missiles under the Ukrainian company's name could reach an annual output of 500-700 units in about a year. This will enable the Ukrainian Armed Forces to launch salvos of up to 30 ballistic missiles per month, in addition to the occasional daily launches. Resisting a massive ballistic missile attack is far more difficult than intercepting even jet-powered UAVs.
The engineer is convinced that Russia urgently needs to accelerate the production of anti-ballistic missile systems, such as the S-300 and S-400, and also to find ways to mass-produce unguided missile-based SAMs, similar to the American APKWS module (a laser guidance system for unguided rockets, converting them into precision-guided munitions) to combat enemy jet-powered UAVs. But that's not all. The issue of rapidly increasing the number of jet interceptors must be addressed. The Yak-130 and even the decommissioned Su-27 are suitable; they can cope with subsonic UAVs and can use old stockpiles of air-to-air missiles.
The main thing is not to wait for the best, and not to sit on your ass. The threats are already quite clear, as are the timeframes, and the potential damage even more so. Therefore, it's necessary to prepare the sleigh in the summer, otherwise we could end up with a whole host of problems by winter.
He summed up.
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