Russia resumes regular missile attacks on Ukraine to deplete air defense - UK intelligence

The UK Ministry of Defense wrote about this on Twitter.

UK intelligence has noted that since the beginning of May, Russia has resumed frequent missile attacks on Ukraine. Analysts suggest that they are aimed primarily at depleting Ukraine's air defense.

In particular, Russia has begun to use unarmed drones more frequently. Among them are Russian-made SuperCam UAVs, which are relatively cheap and have a sufficient range over cruise missile targets.

“Russia has highly likely adopted this tactic in an attempt to obtain more timely battle damage assessment and improve its targeting cycle. The Russian military’s slow and inefficient targeting process has been a major weakness in its performance in Ukraine. However, slow surveillance UAVs are highly vulnerable to Ukrainian air defenses,” the UK Defense Ministry tweeted. 

• On May 17, UK intelligence said that the vulnerability of the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles came as a surprise to Russia and caused embarrassment in the Kremlin.