Russia Ukraine reorganizes its drone defence
Ukraine is reorganizing its air defence system to provide better protection against enemy drones. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has entrusted the successful commander of a drone unit, Pavlo Yelizarov, with this task and made him deputy commander of the air force. In his video address, the president said that the aim was to improve the deployment of mobile air defense units and anti-drone units at close range.
20.01.2026, 04:17
SDA
"Our task is to establish an anti-drone shield over Ukraine," explained Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. "A system that does not react after the fact, but destroys the threat as it approaches." The air defense should not only act selectively, it must be stretched as a net over the entire country.
Minister: Russian war equipment costing eleven billion euros destroyed
The minister, himself only recently in office, praised the military successes of Yelizarov, who was a businessman and producer of a political talk show on television before the war. The drone force set up by Yelizarov had destroyed Russian war equipment worth eleven billion euros, Fedorov wrote on Telegram. One in five Russian tanks taken out of action can be attributed to this unit.
Russia has stepped up its attacks with long-range drones since last year, sometimes deploying several hundred at a time. The weapons cause major damage in the Ukrainian hinterland.
