Ukrainian military destroys Russian Buk systems with 'smart' drones

This is reported by Defense Express. 

The Main Intelligence Directorate presented an instance in which three vehicles from the Buk anti-aircraft missile system were destroyed, including the divisional 'core' - the 9C18 Kupol target detecting station.

The intelligence personnel carried out the attack in collaboration with a different Omega special forces team in the territory of still-occupied Svatove in the Luhansk region.

"The video itself shows the damage to the 9C18 Kupol radar, the 9K37 launcher and the 9A310 gun. But as always, one of the most interesting questions is the means of defeating these high-value targets, which are only described as 'kamikaze' drones. But the fact is that this attack did not involve conventional FPV drones, but more advanced means," the company writes. 

The capacity of the drone to auto-track a target, as well as the existence of a thermal imaging sensor on the 'kamikaze' drone itself, have received particular interest. That is, we are discussing a fairly pricey model. And in this situation, we could be talking about weapons like Switchblade or anything similar.

"And finally, once again, 'kamikaze' drones prove that they are changing the battlefield, because to defeat such targets, it was previously necessary to use long-range precision-guided weapons or conduct an air mission with anti-radar missiles. But now these tasks can be performed at a much lower tactical level," Defense Express notes. 

While powerful 'kamikaze' drones can be used to defeat medium-range Buk SAMs, relatively simpler FPV drones are occasionally sufficient for army-level systems like Tor.