Desperate to shoot down the thousands of Shahed drones Russia launches at Ukrainian cities every month, Ukrainian forces have resorted to, well, desperate measures.
They’ve added infrared air-to-air missiles to a crop-duster.
A video that appeared online on Friday depicts a Zlin Z-37T Agro-Turbo buzzing a field presumably somewhere in western Ukraine. A pair of R-73 dogfighting missiles hang under its wings.
The $22,000 plane reportedly belongs to the Ukrainian army.
It’s obvious the missile-armed Z-37 is meant to be a drone-hunter, as there are no other target types even remotely suitable for a crop-duster with a 500-horsepower engine and a 180-miles-per-hour top speed.
The problem is that the latest Shaheds, the jet-propelled versions, travel twice as fast. Moreover, it’s not clear a half-million-dollar R-73 is the right munition for destroying a Shahed that might cost $50,000 or less.
