Russia claims air defenses have shot down 45 drones targeting their airbase in Syria.

Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria. TASS.

Russia claims that their airbase in Syria has come under sustained drone attack and their air defenses have shot down 45 drones. TASS. Journalists were allowed to look at the drones during a tour of the Hmeymim airbase in Syria. The drones are improvised but the Russians claim that they are also high tech long range drones with the capacity to drop 10 explosives each. The drones have all been launched from Idlib province, which is one of the last areas under rebel and terrorist control. Russia also claims that the drones were all following a template that was probably designed by a foreign power. 

A photo of one of the captured drones. TASS

My Comment:

A note on the source, TASS is a Russian news agency. That should have been obvious from the tone of the news article, a key tell would be swapping "terrorists" for "rebels". Though I rarely link to Russian news sources the western sources for this news story were pretty obviously cribbed from this report so I figured I would go right to the source. I don't know if such a disclaimer is necessary, after all the BBC is funded by the British government and I never warn there, but whatever. 

The drones themselves are fairly impressive. Sure they look kind of ramshackle and improvised but if the capabilities of the drones are correct in the TASS report than that is very impressive. It means the rebels or al-Nusra, whoever is launching these drones don't really even have to get close to the airbase to attack the Russians there. They are also able to launch multiple explosives at once and if I am correct about the size it looks like they are the size of hand grenades. 

These drones could do a quite a bit of damage. If one of these were to get through the Russian defenses they could easily damage an airplane or kill a solider on the ground. The explosives don't look that powerful but we have seen from ISIS that grenades or explosives dropped from drones can and have killed people in the past. 

The question is why Russia has been so successful in shooting them down. Of course we only have the Russian's word on that and it is possible that a few drones have made it through their defenses and haven't been published. That is certainly possible. 

But assuming the Russian aren't lying why aren't these drones working? I think there size is a large part of it. These are not small drones. Their wingspan is almost 12 feet and I am guessing they are showing up on radar. This allows the Russians to shoot them down with missiles or AA guns. 

Even that though is a win for the rebels as the cost of these drones is probably pretty low. I can't imagine that these drones cost more than $1000 even including labor costs, fuel and explosives. The missiles used to shoot them down cost way more than that and even anti-air cannons are not cheap. Plus they do not put their soldiers at risk and have the possible upside of a successful strike. 

Still, it's not like these drones are going to win the war for the rebels. At worst they are making the war much more costly for the Russians and at best they might knock out a few airmen or jets. That won't change the fact that the rebels have essentially lost the war.