Russian Ambassador to France, if our jets are shot down it will be war
(ANSA) – ROME, SEPTEMBER 25 – If Nato shot down Russian jets that violate its airspace, “it would be war”, Russian Ambassador to France Alexey Meshkov said in an interview with RTL France. “You know, there are many Nato planes violating Russian airspace, it happens quite often. After that, they are not shot down,” Meshkov said. Regarding the incursions of drones and foreign aircraft into European skies in recent weeks, the diplomat reiterated Moscow’s position: ‘We deny it’. Russia “does not do this, it does not play games with anyone”, Meshkov said that the West has “deceived” Moscow “on many occasions”. (ANSA).
Ukraine: low cost and devastating, everyone wants to imitate Russian Shahed drones
A global race is on to copy the Iranian Shahed drones, used to terrible effect by Russia in Ukraine. As the Wall Street Journal reports, underlining the West’s lag behind Iranian technology, the US, China, France, the UK, and other countries are investing huge resources to develop replicas of these low-cost, long-range aircraft capable of saturating enemy air defences. Designed by Iran in the early 2000s and already used against Israel and by Iranian proxies in the Middle East, the Shaheds have a low cost – between 35,000 and 60,000 per unit – and a range of over 1,600 kilometres. The Shahed’s triangular-wing design favours low-cost mass production because it typically requires no structural components, explained Steve Wright, a consultant to companies and the British government on drone design. A fibreglass or carbon fibre body and the use of a propeller engine rather than jet propulsion also help keep costs down. “If you go to war, you need very deep pockets,” explained General Andre Steur, commander of the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force, pointing out that the war in Ukraine highlighted the need for cheap and numerically significant weapons, and the West’s current inadequacy on this front.
In the US, companies such as SpektreWorks and Griffon Aerospace are developing prototypes similar to the Shahed, such as the Lucas and Arrowhead, following up on a memo from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. Other Western models are aiming for higher performance: the British SkyShark, for example, flies at 450 kilometres per hour – almost four times the speed of the Shahed-136 – at an estimated cost of between $50 and $65,000. The French Mbda has also created a long-range attack drone at a much lower cost than a cruise missile. However, Western manufacturers face higher labour and material costs than the Shahed. The war in Ukraine,’ notes the Wall Street Journal, ‘has shown how urgent it is to develop cheap alternatives to conventional missiles, which cost over a million dollars and take more than a year to produce. Russia began deploying the Shahed at the end of 2022, after signing an agreement with Iran for the purchase and local production of the drones. Since then, it has launched tens of thousands of attack drones against targets in Ukraine, often using them as ‘decoys’ to occupy air defences and pave the way for devastating missiles. According to experts such as James Patton Rogers of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, the ability to strike at long range with swarms of low-cost drones represents ‘one of the most serious threats to international security’.
Nato corrects itself, Russian jets intercepted near Latvian airspace
NATO, in a post on X, updates the position where the five Russian fighters were intercepted by the two Hungarian Gripens, i.e. near Latvian airspace and not Danish as previously indicated.
