“By winter, Russia will be launching thousands of Shaheds at Ukraine per day,” – military officer

By winter, Russia will be launching thousands of “Shahed” drones against Ukraine each day.

This was stated to The Times by a Ukrainian battery commander tasked with shooting down drones.

“By winter we will be seeing thousands of ‘Shaheds’ a day, and our government is only now beginning to look for solutions. These solutions were needed yesterday,” said the soldier, nicknamed Odesyt.

He also noted that “Shaheds” have now begun to maneuver in an attempt to evade interceptors.

“A couple of weeks ago they significantly upgraded the ‘Shahed.’ It can sense when it’s being attacked. Now they evade — right before impact they start maneuvering. We were the first to encounter this because we’ve shot down so many of them. They tested it on us. This is a new problem we’re trying to solve,” Odesyt said.

According to soldiers from the Third Army Corps, the manufacturer of the interceptors has already sent new equipmentto counter these maneuvers.

Earlier, it was reported that in July, Russian forces launched nearly as many drones at Ukraine as in all of 2024.

Meanwhile, Russia announced that its Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet is equipped with hypersonic weapons.

“In accordance with the state defense order, the Aerospace Forces receive modern and upgraded weapons systems every year. The pace of deliveries of fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft is increasing, along with modern airborne strike systems and hypersonic weapons,” said Maksimtsev, Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, in an interview.

Military Watch Magazine believes this could refer to an air-launched modification of the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which is currently deployed on Russian surface ships and submarines. Rumors about such a modification have circulated for a long time, but there has been little official information, and the version about the Su-57 carrying the Zircon has not been confirmed.