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Russia launches repeated aerial attacks
Ukraine’s air force reported several waves of Russian drone and missile attacks in late September, including strikes involving jet-powered drones and advanced missiles.
From the night of Sept. 27 through the morning of Sept. 28, Russia launched 165 Shahed and Gerbera drones, including 79 jet-powered aircraft, according to the Ukrainian air force. Ukraine said its defenses had shot down or otherwise neutralized 112 of them by 7 a.m.
On Sept. 29, the air force said Russia fired ballistic missiles and dozens of jet-powered drones toward Kyiv. A day later, it reported that Russia had attacked targets across Ukraine overnight with 188 drones and several missiles, including a Zircon.
During the Sept. 30 attack, an object believed to be a Russian drone crossed into Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and Romania, before crashing and exploding. Moldova has recorded 44 incidents involving its airspace this year.
Videos show evolving drone interceptions
Ukraine has also released images and videos showing how its forces are confronting the expanding drone threat. One Ukrainian F-16 pilot shot down three jet-powered Geran drones during a single Sept. 10 mission using only the fighter’s 20 mm cannon. Images from the engagement were released about a week later.
Video released Sept. 19 by the Security Service of Ukraine showed a new interceptor drone pursuing and destroying a jet-powered Shahed, believed to be a Geran-5, traveling at roughly 600 kilometers per hour, or about 370 mph. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also shared the footage on Telegram.
Another video released Sept. 23 showed Ukrainian air defenses using a STING first-person-view interceptor to chase and destroy a modified Russian attack drone. A cockpit-camera video posted Sept. 28 showed flames spreading near a Ukrainian pilot’s canopy during low-altitude flight, followed shortly afterward by another burst of gunfire.
Other recent clips addressed a night when Russia launched 295 drones as Ukraine carried out drone strikes in several Russian regions, as well as an attack involving 282 Russian drones and hypersonic missiles. Additional reports highlighted three consecutive days of drone attacks around Kyiv that killed at least 37 people, a collision involving two Russian Su-35S fighters that killed one pilot and a late-July video reporting that a Ukrainian F-16 had downed a Russian Su-35.
F-16s join Ukraine’s Soviet-era fleet
Ukraine’s air force is one of the country’s five military branches and is headquartered in Vinnytsia. It was reestablished after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with March 17, 1992, listed as its formal founding date. It is described as the world’s 27th-largest air force and the seventh-largest in Europe.
The service operates a combination of Soviet-designed aircraft, including the MiG-29, and Western-supplied planes such as modernized F-16AM and F-16BM Mid-Life Update fighters. Ukraine’s formerly separate air defense force was incorporated into the air force in 2004.
The F-16 interception underscores how a fighter closely associated with the United States and its allies is being adapted to Ukraine’s defense against relatively small attack drones. The use of cannon fire also illustrates one potential alternative to expending larger missiles against unmanned aircraft.
Separate passenger jet incident causes confusion
A passenger jet emergency reported the same day involved Russian and Ukrainian pilots but was unrelated to the Ukrainian air force. The military aircraft that responded to the hijacking signal belonged to the Israeli air force.
A flydubai passenger plane bound for Israel sent a hijacking signal before making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The airline said a physical confrontation between pilots in the cockpit caused the alarm.
The pilots were reported to be Russian and Ukrainian nationals. Authorities have not disclosed what led to the dispute and are investigating the incident.
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