There Are A Bunch Of Fake F-16s Sitting Around In Ukraine. Russia Just Blew One Up.
Decoys are more and more important as Russian drone ranges deeper into Ukraine.
Russian drones are ranging deeper into Ukraine
Their latest target: a Ukrainian air force F-16—but not a real one
Decoys are taking on even greater importance as Russian deep strikes escalate
Some Russians cheered when, on Thursday, it seemed a Russian drone from the elite Rubicon group had struck an irreplaceable Ukrainian air force Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter on the ground at an air base near Kropyvnytskyi in Kirovohrad Oblast, in central Ukraine 200 km front the front line.
But it’s evident, from the appearance of the F-16 in the BM-35 drone’s video feed, that the aircraft was an unflyable decoy made of rubber or wood. Its air intake was the wrong shape. Its wings drooped. Even Rubin conceded it had hit a fake F-16.
The bad news for the Ukrainian air force is that, thanks to improvements to airframes and communications, Rubicon’s first-person-view drones such as that BM-35 are reaching deeper and deeper into Ukraine and threatening more Ukrainian airfields and the precious aircraft they shelter.
The good news for the Ukrainian air force is that, for now, it probably still has plenty of decoy F-16s to distract Russian forces away from its growing fleet of real F-16s, nearly 90 of which a Belgian-Danish-Dutch consortium has pledged to the Ukrainian war effort.
For a couple of years now, Ukraine has enjoyed an edge in unmanned deep strikes. Consider the Ukrainian state security agency’s relentless unmanned raids on Russian air defenses and parked warplanes in occupied Crimea, 100 km or farther from the front line in southern Ukraine.
Last year, the SBU hit no fewer than 15 Russian aircraft in Crimea.
But the Russians are catching up. Late last year, Rubicon released footage depicting drone strikes on high-value targets as far as 200 km behind the front line.
