A Russian suicide UAV flies over Ukraine (Photo: AFP).
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Operations Command, said Russia deployed Shahed suicide drones from the sea in recent attacks, using the noise of waves and other weather phenomena to mask the sound of the UAVs’ engines as they approached Kiev’s targets.
According to Ms. Humeniuk, Russian Shahed drones often fly low over the water then dive sharply over the coast and head straight for Ukrainian targets.
She said Moscow used similar tactics when the Shahed was first deployed. Russia has reintroduced them as Moscow continues to experiment with different ways to penetrate Ukraine’s air defenses.
“This tactic is not new, they have been using it from the beginning when trying to hide the distinctive sound of Shahed from a distance. And it is no surprise that many Ukrainian mobile air defense groups often focus on sound before using other tools,” said Ms. Humeniuk.
"Shaheed drones are often detected specifically by sound. Perhaps they want to hide this dangerous sound behind weather phenomena," the Ukrainian official said.
Russia carried out a drone attack on the night of January 25 on Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in central Ukraine.
Ukraine said it had destroyed targets in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. She added that Odesa’s port infrastructure continued to be targeted by Russia.
In recent days, Russia has been testing new attack tactics using various missile and drone complexes — or sometimes just missiles — to penetrate Ukraine's air defenses.
UAVs are playing an increasingly important role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This type of weapon is low cost, but highly effective for both Kiev and Moscow.
For Russia, the low-cost Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 killer UAVs could make up for the lack of missiles after large-scale raids. In addition, there have been recent reports that Russia appears to have deployed Shahed-238 suicide jet UAVs to Ukraine.
This is an upgraded version of the Shahed-136, but has faster speed and longer range than its predecessors due to being equipped with a jet engine.
This means that the Shahed-238 is harder to detect, giving Ukrainian air defense systems less time to detect and shoot it down before it reaches its target.
In late November, Ukrainian officials said Russia had begun deploying upgraded versions of the Shahed to the Ukrainian battlefield. These versions are darker in color and made of carbon fiber, making them harder for Ukrainian air defenses to detect.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russia has increased its Shahed UAV attacks at night, making them more difficult for Ukraine to detect.
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