An Iranian Shahed-136 UAV 'suicide drone' achieved its first air-to-air kill by attacking and destroying UAF MiG-29. The suicide drone used by the Russian forces has done a first that will make the Ukrainian Air Force warier when the loitering UAVs are around.
UAV Systems Consequences
Two years back when a Turkish drone attacked a soldier on its own with no operator input.
Almost a week before, one of the delta wing suicide drones killed a jet fighter for the first time in combat. These are incidents circumstances, not how capable the weapon system is, reported the Bulgarian Military.
Shahed-136 is a loitering drone that waits for targets of opportunity, alleged by Ukrainian forces to terrorize them as an attack from the skies comes anytime.
Moscow is accused of using Shahed-136 UAV but denies though more instances of its use raise doubts, the Ukrainians have used drones as well but with no negative feedback.
Last October 12, a UAF MiG-29 collided with an Iranian drone, causing it to crash. It happens at 21:00 during a mission to shoot down a group of dreaded Iranian suicide drones that ended tragically.
Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) said the pilot destroyed five of the kamikaze drones close to Torbov village. One version is debris down the jet, not a direct attack, and drone debris fell into the cockpit.
If somehow the version is proven, it's a direct result of the behavior of the munitions in the air. An implication included the act of aggression of a Turkish drone, Kargu 2, in Libya, due to a mistake in the identification system, which threatened a serviceman by accident.
It is unlikely the Shahed would be used to attack a plane because it has missiles for air or ground assault, even bombs or target acquisition systems. Explosives are onboard to explode when their suicide dives.
Two ways it can kill a plane were explained, either direct collision by detonating on contact. As the SBI says, debris from shot-down drones can make a plane crash. Since it is a suicide drone, the weapon can destroy a target, and achieving the result does not matter.
The plane was destroyed, but the pilot ejected safely, but the SBI won't confirm that the suicide drone was responsible for the crash. The pilot of the Ukrainian fighter jet is fine, managed to eject, and is in the hospital recovering, SBI says. The Bureau confirms that investigations are underway to establish the exact cause of the downing of the fighter.
Russia Upgrades Its Drones
Russian military forces have been attacking Ukrainian energy facilities that use foreign equipment recently. It concerns a sequence of Iranian UAVs supplied by Tehran to Moscow, citing EurAsian Times.
Russian sources, primarily from the Russian military-industrial complex, as asserted by Military Monitoring, GLONASS navigation modules have already been incorporated into all versions of Iranian Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles. Such an allegation firmly disproves initial comments from Moscow that it is not using Iranian military hardware.
A Shahed-136 UAV from Iran had allegedly shot down a UAF MiG-29, which is under investigation by Ukrainians.
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