Russia deliberately targets densely populated areas of Ukraine's major cities — aviation expert

Hennadiy Khazan, president of the Ukrainian Aviation Association of Pilots and Aircraft Owners AOPA Ukraine, shared the information on Espreso TV.

“We must understand that no one will be shooting down Russian Gerans with Patriot systems. We need Patriot SAMs to protect large cities and agglomerations where a significant number of people live densely. The recent Russian terrorist attacks, including those on Kyiv and Dnipro, show that the Russians have chosen a tactic of striking cities’ densely populated districts. They attack multi-story residential buildings to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible. This is a deliberate tactic. They pick targets and they are not missing. That, in fact, is the mission for the Patriots — to shield the civilian population from the severe effects of Russian drones and missiles,” Khazan said.

The expert emphasized that Ukraine needs more air-defence assets in order to substantially increase the percentage of Russian targets shot down.

“We also need funds to buy other types of protection against Russian drones. For example, small‑caliber artillery, which we missed out on last year during weapons procurement. Still, we need to move forward. Ukraine needs additional means so that we can more effectively raise the percentage of Russian attack systems shot down,” he concluded.

• On the evening of Saturday, September 27, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with strike drones, followed by missiles at night. In Zaporizhzhia, 27 were wounded, and in Kyiv on the morning of September 28, four were killed, including a 12-year-old girl.
• On Tuesday, September 30, Russian forces attacked the city of Dnipro with strike drones.