The electronic warfare system was “no match” for the robotic aircraft, the military has said
Russian forces have used an armed drone to destroy a Ukrainian electronic warfare (EW) station designed to defeat enemy unmanned aircraft, the Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.
The engagement reportedly took place in the border area of Russia’s Kursk Region, where Ukrainian forces made an incursion in August. The Ukrainian station was identified as a Nota EW system.
The Nota system was designed in the late 2010s and first announced in 2017 by then-commander of the Ukrainian General Staff, Victor Muzhenko. According to descriptions in the media, the road-mobile version of the station is normally mounted on an armored vehicle and can defeat drones at a range of 15km or more. Two people are required to operate it.
Footage released by the Russian ministry showed what appeared to be an omnipolar antenna mounted on a pole protruding up among trees. A projectile is then seen hitting it, causing an explosion. The video was shot from above, presumably by another drone.
The Russian military did not say whether the Nota was in use when it was engaged but claimed that its operators were killed in the strike. The weapon system used for the strike was identified as the Inokhodets (“mount with an ambling gait” in Russian), for which the Ukrainian system was “no match,” the statement said.
The Inokhodets designation is used for the armed version of the Orion fixed-wing medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drone. The platform reportedly has three hard points for weapons and a payload allowance of 200kg, with multiple options for air-to-surface armaments ranging from bombs to a light cruise missile.
Russia reportedly reduced the use of such larger drones during the early phases of the conflict when Ukraine possessed significant short-range air defense capabilities and could effectively oppose them. But they made a return recently after design modifications and are extensively used in repelling the Kursk offensive, according to Russian media reports.
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