This afternoon, an unidentified ISR drone was intercept over Kyiv near the Maidan. While many were quick to speculate that it was Russian due to recent strikes against the city, photos and videos from the incident suggest that this may have been a friendly fire incident involving a Ukrainian Bayraktar TB-2.
https://t.co/ka5BQRDt6o pic.twitter.com/L0RFD2qkkr
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As higher quality photos emerged of the drone, a debate emerged online as people argued whether it was a Ukrainian TB-2 or a similarly designed Russian Korsar.
Look at the photos and comparing it to a TB-2, it is seemingly identical from the shape of the tail, unfolded wheel layout, and more importantly the presence of a camera sensor on the bottom hull. Likewise, the TB-2 has four hard points, which can be seen in the photos above.
While the Russian Korsar looks very similar to the TB-2 in terms of tail shape and overall design, this drone lacks an external camera sensor that is seen on the TB-2, only has two hard points, and folds its wheels up during flight. Likewise, the operating distance for the Korsar is only 160 miles, which would be impossible if launched from Russian forward positions.
One could speculate that if this was a Korsar, it could have been launched from Belarus or from the southern tip of Bryansk Oblast in Russia, but there was no indication of drones flying from this direction.
Overall, what does this mean? Ukraine likely shot down one of their own TB-2 drones over Kyiv. Footage and photo of the drone match that of a TB-2 and not a Russian Korsar, which is already in extremely limited service. The reason why it was shot down remains unclear, but could be speculated to be because of communication failure and twitchy trigger fingers as the capital had already seen a wave of Shahed drone attacks the night before.
