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Strapped for air defenses, Ukraine has begun to arm agricultural aircraft with air-to-air missiles in a desperate attempt to counter the ever growing threat of Russian drones.
First evidence of these efforts emerged online on August 8 with two videos showing a Z-137T agricultural turboprop-powered aircraft armed with two Soviet-era R-73 infrared-homing short-range air-to-air missiles flying on a very low level somewhere in Ukraine.
The Z-137T is a modernized version of the Czechoslovakian Zlin Z-37 produced in the 1990s. The aircraft is highly maneuverable and has a maximum cruising speed of over 250 kilometers per hour, faster than most long-range suicide drones.
Despite these qualities, it is doubtful that the airframe of the aircraft would be able to handle the strain of launching missiles like the R-73.
The R-73 missiles in Ukraine’s arsenal are mostly Soviet-made R-73A with a limited range of 30 kilometers, but even this older version might be too powerful for the Z-137T, whose wings are just designed to handle things like agricultural spray equipment.
While this is the first example of Ukraine arming turboprop-powered aircraft with air-to-air missiles, Kiev forces have been using such aircraft, mainly Yakovlev Yak-52s armed with machine guns, to intercept drones for quite some time.
The sketchy, Z-137T missile-armed drone interceptor shows that the Ukrainian Air Force is truly struggling to cope with increasing Russian drone attacks.
Geran-type propeller-driven fixed-wing long-range suicide drones have been causing a headache for Kiev, with reports suggesting that Russia could soon employ 1,000 or even 2,000 such drones a day.
While drone interceptors like the Z-137T and Yak-52 have the speed to keep with regular Geran-type drones, Russia has already developed a turbojet-powered version of the drone with enough speed to make intercepting it only possible with costly air defense missiles.
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