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




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 (*):



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.