"Russia's air defense is more leaky than expected": Defense Express on UAV attacks on Shahed production and refinery

He spoke about this on the Espreso TV channel. 

"The very fact that today's attack was carried out shows that it is possible that deep in the territory of the Russian Federation, the Russians have more problems with air defense than we could have imagined. Unfortunately, it is not appropriate to talk about Tatarstan in the context of it being an enslaved republic of the Russian Federation. It is a very large military-industrial and military hub. There is a central tank school for the Russian army in Kazan, an aircraft factory where Tu-160M bombers are built and Tu-22M3s can be repaired. If we geolocate the immediate site of the hit, the KAMAZ plant is about 20 km away, and one of Russia's strategically important hydroelectric power plants is 25 km away. It seemed like an important hub that should be protected by an air defense system as well as Moscow. But it seems that it was not protected in any way," Kyrychevskyi said.

It is also likely that the Ukrainian planners of such attacks have found a way to bypass the Russian air defense system, which is mostly concentrated on the frontline, he said.

"Air defense is on wheels. We see here a fairly large air target, in our version, which can take a very large combat load. It is unlikely that it has the ability to maneuver in the same way that any cruise missile of any type can do intensively. So, this demonstrates that our planners could find a way to bypass the Russian air defense system. Most of the Russian air defense system is concentrated at the front. The Russians themselves have admitted that they literally plagiarized our system of mobile fire groups and implemented it. They have decided to shoot down our drones in the same way that the Ukrainian military does when shooting down Russian Shahed drones. That is, perhaps the depth of their problems with air defense systems is even greater than we can estimate," Kyrychevskyi concluded.

• On the morning of April 2, the authorities of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, which is located more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine, reported a drone attack on businesses in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, allegedly resulting in casualties. It is reported that Ukraine's military intelligence attacked a factory that assembles Russian Shahed-136/131 strike drones.