It seems that the reputation of the Turkish Bayraktar UAVs has been destroyed in Ukraine, with reports that they not only did not offer the slightest operational advantage but were rendered useless from the first days of the war.
At enikos.gr, we have several times conveyed the reservations of Greek Pentagon officers, who questioned the effectiveness of Turkish drones, which, although they had successes in Nagorno Karabakh and Libya, had never been tested in the field against organized air defense.
Bayraktar’s operational weakness seems now to be exposed and the destabilization of the achievements of the Turkish defense industry is more deafening than ever.
The beginning of the end came on October 13, when Russian cyber pranksters Vovan and Lexus impersonated US officials and recorded senior Ukrainian official Serhiy Pashinsky criticizing the Bayraktar TB-2 in an online interview.
Pashinsky is a member of parliament of Ukraine and chairman of the National Security and Defense Committee of the Council of Ukraine.
Pasinski thought he was talking to former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. He said, “there is more public relations and propaganda in Bayraktar than combat use.”
Simply put, the UAV promoted by Turkey and made a song for its supposed successes in the Ukrainian Army, was nothing more than a piece of propaganda in the war against the Russians.
According to the Eurasiantimes website, after initial tactical successes, Turkish drones began to engage advanced Russian air defense and Electronic Warfare (EW) systems.
A Foreign Policy report described how junior Ukrainian officers, front-line troops and senior staff members had their doubts about their continued use. After the constant failures, the Ukrainians had to reduce the use of Bayraktar to 20 to 30 sorties a day.
Even US defense officials have expressed reluctance to send expensive MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones to Ukraine. Russian Pantsir air defense systems could be the reason, as they are believed to have successfully shot down many of Ukraine’s jets and drones.
A later EurAsian Times analysis revealed how Russia had long led the way in advancing its Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities since its intervention in Syria in 2014. It had developed capabilities to disable and jam most GPS and highly encrypted radio frequency signals.
But even the factory that the Turks would build in cooperation with the Ukrainians in Ukraine to produce Bayraktar appears to be being dismantled, along with their operational capabilities.
According to Russian media, “as Putin and Erdogan plan to build a natural gas hub in Turkey, Ankara must end the supply of UAVs to Kyiv,” which was a condition of the deal.
