Ukrainians decided to call for the "north wind" with "Bayraktar"

МОСКВА, 28 октября 2021, Институт РУССТРАТ. As it is wisely said in the Panchatantra, when God wants to punish someone, he first of all takes away their mind. What happened in Donbass is clear confirmation of this. According to the Ukrainian side, they managed to find a smart way to show that "Baba Yaga is still against it”. Moreover, to do it publicly, emphasising their impunity. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed the first use of the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 reconnaissance and strike drone on the positions of the L/DPR army. As follows from the distributed video, the position of the artillery gun was attacked by the MAM-L controlled planning aerial bomb, which is part of the standard armament of the drone. The Ukrainian military insists that the drone did not cross the demarcation line during the strike. This is theoretically possible, as the maximum range of MAM-L application reaches 12.8 km. Moreover, the strike was allegedly only a response "to the shelling of Ukrainian territory by the enemy”, that's why, according to Kiev's logic, "the Minsk Agreements have not been violated”. But according to this logic, the attacked gun did not cross the demarcation line either, which means that even if you believe in provoking shelling from the side of the armed forces of the Republics, this did not violate the "Minsk Agreements" either But all of this is just sentiments. In fact, Kiev, as it seems to it, has successfully realised a long-standing dream – to continue the war in Donbass without the risk of receiving a crushing response. Like saying, look, "Ukraine now has drones”, the L/DPR has absolutely nothing it can use to oppose these strikes. "And now...". There is no doubt that the UAF indeed has Bayraktars. Back in 2018, Ukraine purchased two Bayraktar TB2 complexes from Turkey for $69 million. These are six UAVs, two control centres and about 200 controlled Roketsan MAM-L gliding bombs. A year and a half later, Kiev bought two more devices, bringing the number of drones to eight. So, in principle, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could’ve started striking Donbass from August 2019, when Kiev officially announced the end of the cycle of mastering new equipment. But it didn't do that because it was afraid. What has changed now? Apparently two factors coincided. The chair swayed violently under Zelensky, demanding some kind of victory, be it even only momentary and just media's one. Capable of distracting society for a while. The second point is that the current Ukraine is a "project" of Victoria Nuland, whose recent visit to Moscow was clearly unsuccessful. It is clear that it was not caused at all by worries about the fate of Ukraine or Donbass. The reasons lie solely in the intra-American political struggle for power, in which Nuland was thrown overboard by all the leading groups. If the attempt to prove the ability to "manage the problem" through negotiations with the leader of Russia in the diplomatic plane failed, then why not try at least a little bit to inflate the cooled embers of the war. Especially since the operation costs a penny, tiny in actual scale, but extremely noisy in the media. However, noise is the ultimate maximum of what happened. Even by using a very large fleet of Bayraktars, Kiev will not be able to significantly change the strategic (or at least operational) balance of forces on the separation line. Without a sufficient number of "infantry", no wars are won. The flight of the US army from Afghanistan is a convincing proof of this. And the Armed Forces of Ukraine in their current state are decidedly unsuitable for an active offensive. It means that the strikes by Turkish drones simply feed the bruised egos of the military-political leadership of Ukraine and the nationalist-minded part of its population. And they do it quite stupidly. Only until the "north wind" is called for. And that it will do blow, there is no need to go to a fortune teller to know it. Bayraktars are able to work only in conditions of completely clear sky. Including clean one in radio engineering terms. To create critical problems for them with the help of mobile radars, combined not only with some "Pantsirs" that are still missing in Donbass, but even with the most ordinary MANPADS of the "Verba" type, which are definitely there, is not so difficult. In general, Kiev has not yet realised that "winter is near", and the Turkish drone is not at all a fabulous sword-kladenets, but there is no "doctor" who could talk some sense into Kiev.