Military-political expert Oleksandr Kovalenko expresses doubts about the Russian Federation’s night drone strike in the Odesa region.
«I was surprised by several aspects of this attack, in particular, the atypical interval between waves of drones. It is known that the enemy launched 31 ‘Shahed’ drones into Ukraine at night (23 drones were shot down by our air defense systems). The first stage of the attack lasted from 21:29 (when the air alarm was announced) until 02:21; the second conditional wave lasted from 04:50 in the morning until 06:16,» the analyst reminded.
«This attack was not only numerous and prolonged but also strange. Previously, Russia also used waves for strikes on Odesa and the region, but they had a shorter pause between them and moved with minimal intervals, no more than half an hour to an hour,» Kovalenko emphasized.
According to the expert, the final wave of drones hit the area from approximately 5:00 in the morning until 6:00 in the morning. «A very late boundary, even for carrying out Shahed-131/136 attacks,» he noted.
In his opinion, this may indicate that Russia may have obtained additional reconnaissance information during the night attack. «And based on this, the next wave could have been promptly launched, or the reasons could be different, it is still difficult to say with certainty,» the analyst believes.
Kovalenko emphasized that during the first third of February 2024, Russia used 126 drones for attacks on Ukraine (our air defense systems shot down 81 drones). «So, Ukraine eliminated 64% of the targets — less than before,» Kovalenko pointed out.
However, the effectiveness of destroying drones is still too early to assess, as more and more footage of not shot down but «landing» Russian drones appear on the internet. It is unclear whether they are included in the overall statistics of eliminated targets, the observer stressed.
«In general, the dynamics of using Shahed-131/136 remain relatively stable for the second month, without signs of increasing production capacity, but this does not exclude the process of accumulating for future terrorist acts, especially on the eve of fetish dates,» he concluded.
