Bayraktars TB2. How many were in Ukraine, and how many were destroyed by the Russian army.

Quote from: LTU_btc on June 30, 2022, 07:28:24 PM

In recent days name of Konashnenkov were mentioned few times here. So, finally someone spend some time and debunked his lies in detail. So, how surprising, but according to him, Russia destroyed more Ukraine army hardware than they actually have. For example, they destroyed 84 Bayraktar drones, 20 more than Ukraine ever had:
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/06/30/according-to-russia-s-press-releases-they-ve-destroyed-more-military-hardware-than-ukraine-ever-had

Reminded me of the “Chinese whispers” game, when the original information is distorted by passing through several people. To get uncorrupted data, it is necessary that none of the transmitters spoil it along the way.

5 . I'm quoting LTU_btc
4 . . LTU_btc is quoting Medusa
3 . . . Medusa is quoting Proekt
2 . . . . Proekt is quoting Defense-UA <--- the weak link was found
1 . . . . . Defense-UA is quoting the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
0 . . . . . . Ministry of Defense of Ukraine - the source

In short: 62 is the total number of drones ordered by Ukraine in 2021 (37 + 25): 37 units are Ukrainian drones ("Fury" and "Spectator") and 25 are bayraktars TB2. The presence of bayraktars in Ukraine in the amount of 60 to 96 units was reported this week by Ukrainian sources.

Having made a little effort to find original information, it becomes obvious that the so-called journalists from the "Proekt", in their attempts to accuse the Russian general staff of lying, are themselves carrying nonsense. I wonder, besides such "journalists", were there any official statements by the Ukrainian military command that the Russian Ministry of Defense provides falsified statistics on bayraktars? After all, this may raise questions from Turkish suppliers and other military departments cooperating with the Ukrainian side. I've tried to find messages by the name of Konashenkov on the Facebook pages of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but no results.

Here is a comment from the "Proekt" website about the bayraktars, translated from Russian into English:

Code:

"Turkish Bayraktar drones, according to Konashenkov, have been completely destroyed.
A month after the start of the war, on March 25, the Ministry of Defense reported that
the Russian military had shot down 35 of the 36 devices Ukraine had. By the end of June,
the figure had grown - there were already 84 Bayraktar shot down in Konashenkov's messages.
At least this figure may contradict public data - it is known that the Ukrainian army purchased
only 62 such drones before the war, while 25 of them were supposed to be delivered in 2022 year.
At the beginning of March, a batch of bayraktars actually arrived in Ukraine.
Four more drones were donated by a Turkish manufacturer."

The fact that this is not a typo, and they are talking about 62 bayraktars, is confirmed by this video on their YouTube channel (time code 08:50). According to the "Proekt", for 100 days of the conflict (i.e. until June 4 2022), the RF Ministry of Defense reported about 75 destroyed bayraktars.

The journalists of the "Proekt" referred to the Ukrainian website Defense-UA. If you go to that site, then it talks about 62 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and 25 of the 62 drones were to be delivered at the beginning of 2022.

The same Ukrainian source suggested - based on the money spent - that among the new UAV delivered to Ukraine there could also be bayraktars TB2's. Prices are $3.5 million for 37 drones and $108 million for 25 drones. Considering that the price of bayraktar TB2 = $5 million, there simply could not be bayraktars among those 37 units.

It must also be said that this nonsense about "62 bayraktars" was picked up by some Ukrainian media (1, 2)

Screenshot of the "Proekt" website, whose founders are spreading fakes.
Would it be better instead of drawing colorful pictures, they double-check the information published on their site, or is this not part of their main duties? Why do users have to search for everything themselves, wasting their time?

Now, that we have dealt with the lies of the "journalists", let's try to figure it out how many bayraktars in Ukraine were reported in more established media.

Information that Ukraine had from 20 to 50 bayraktars by the beginning of the Russian invasion was published by a number of media resources (AP, Forbes, FT, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, Report, DW, MWM, TSN).

On March 25, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported about 35 bayraktars destroyed out of 36 in total in service with Ukraine, then, apparently, the Russian side was guided by the same sources as the CNN, Reuters and Bloomberg at that time.

Translation of the line № 7: "UAV Bayraktar TB2. In service on 24.02.2022 = 36, Destroyed = 35 / 97% Loss"

Of course, no one except the military leadership of Ukraine knows the exact number of Turkish drones they use, as well as their losses. And even official statements by different parties to the conflict, most likely, will not mean the true state of affairs, since information is a weapon in capable hands.

However, this week news was released on the above-mentioned Ukrainian website Defense-UA, and it turned out that Ukraine had from 60 to 96 bayraktars in service, considering that one bayraktar complex contains 6 drones (*):

Code:

"Since February 24, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received up to 50 Bayraktar TB2
strike and reconnaissance drones from the Turkish company Baykar, which have joined
those that were already in service before the invasion of the Russian army.
These figures were announced by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov.
<...> In general, if we take deliveries of about three complexes starting from 2019,
two of which ended up in the Air Force, and another one of a much larger strength
in the Ukrainian Navy, as well as about 50 more drones, then, most likely, now
the Armed Forces of Ukraine are operating somewhere around 10-16 Bayraktar TB2 complexes."

In addition to that, the Russian Ministry of Defense in mid-April reported that it had discovered 12 bayraktar complexes (72 drones).

Some forum users do not trust official Russian sources, in which case, is there a way for them to at least approximately find out how many bayraktars were destroyed in Ukraine?

On May 10, 2022, one of the Ukrainian Telegram channels, citing a source in the presidential administration, said that 50 bayraktars were lost.

Even if this is a lie that has nothing to do with reality, then don't you think it's strange that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, constantly suffering from a lack of resources, needed to order a dozen more of these drones (which not the cheap) and Ukrainian volunteers are organizing a fundraiser for the purchase of Turkish drones. Here comes another question, why do they not want to buy drones of Ukrainian origin, but instead they are sponsoring the Turkish president's Erdogan family, whose son-in-law is a chief technology officer at Baykar company? It seems that Ukraine, with the support of Russia, is helping the Turkish military-industrial complex to enrich itself by sending expensive drones on suicide missions, while Russia is solving the problem of disposing of old Soviet ammunition on Ukrainian soil.

It's precisely clear that it is not in the interests of the Ministry of Defense of any country to publicly report on the amount of their destroyed equipment. This will undermine the morale of the soldiers and cool the ardor of the allies who send help. However, if the Ukrainian high military command doesn't comment at all on the briefings of the Russian Ministry of Defense, according to which about ~ 90 bayraktars have already been liquidated, then this may lead to some questions. Literally, an entire army of combat drones was destroyed.

The window below contains links to the briefings of the RF Ministry of Defense on the destroyed bayraktars. I got 85 (35 + 50) + another 10 (questionable) and two hangars with Turkish drones - this is from February 24 to June 21. The difficulty in the calculations is that after March 25, the Russian Ministry doesn't conduct a subset (I didn't find it), and some briefings close in dates and the same information is sometimes duplicated or intersected.

Code:

21.06 +? https://t.me/mod_russia/16990 (hangar)
20.06 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/16936
18.06 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16880
17.06 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16845
13.06 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16725
12.06 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16700
05.06 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16484
04.06 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/16457
02.06 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/16384
28.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16231
25.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16109
23.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/16051
19.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15882
14.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15730
13.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15685
12.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15658
11.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15626
10.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15609
09.05 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/15520
08.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15411
08.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15399
08.05 +3 https://t.me/mod_russia/15366
07.05 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/15342
05.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15193
04.05 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/15139
03.05 +? https://t.me/mod_russia/15128 (hangar)
02.05 +3 https://t.me/mod_russia/15088
30.04 +3 https://t.me/mod_russia/14957
29.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14880
27.04 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/14798
23.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14682
23.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14663
14.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14327
12.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14288 (?)
12.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14256
09.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14192
08.04 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/14136 (?)
07.04 +2 https://t.me/mod_russia/14097
06.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/14056
05.04 +7 https://t.me/mod_russia/13994 (?)
01.04 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/13837
31.03 +1 https://t.me/mod_russia/13767
25.03 .. https://t.me/mod_russia/13574 = 35