Russia changes drone attacks tactics, Ukrainian air defense looks for ways to respond - expert

He told about this on Espreso TV.

"The enemy's tactics of using drones are constantly changing. This is due to the actions taken by the Air Force and the Defence Forces of Ukraine in general, which are building a defence system and effective tactics to counter such drones," the expert said.

He cited the military as saying that the geography of Russian enemy strikes has now changed. 

"The percentage of damage caused by such drones has changed, and this is also due to a change in the tactics of their use. We can see that the enemy has started to strike more at frontline areas, trying to solve its own problems. This indicates two things. Firstly, the tactics and the system built to counter Shahed drones by Ukraine were effective, with a drone destruction rate of 80 to 100%," Riabykh explains.

According to him, the Russian military has also realized that it is inexpedient for them to spend drones on such attacks, so the Russian army is making adjustments to the list of targets and choosing new routes where the air defense system may not be as effective.

"Passing through the entire territory of Ukraine and encountering mobile groups that have already developed tactics to destroy these drones, these groups are quite densely dispersed throughout Ukraine on the routes and paths where the enemy uses drones. The enemy is using certain tactics to preserve, let's say, the potential of the same Shahed drones and use them on other targets where, in its opinion, there is less protection. But all this can happen once or twice. There is a philosophy of war and constant counteraction here, when one side has to outmaneuver the other, and of course, everyone takes into account each other's strengths and weaknesses, and a countermeasure will be found to such tactics," he concluded.

• Natalia Humeniuk, head of the Joint Coordination Press Centre of the Southern Ukrainian Defense Forces, said that Russian army is trying to test Ukraine's readiness and is planning future powerful attacks, as well as looking for new tactics of using Shahed drones.