Chaos and friendly fire. Russian air defences around St Petersburg

Reports of the losses have emerged from pro-Kremlin Russian social media accounts, which are generally considered well-informed. One of them stated that the defence of St Petersburg had come at a „very, very high cost”.

The reports concern efforts to repel a major Ukrainian attack involving one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles (OWA UAVs) during the night of 10–11 November. Ukrainian forces struck targets in the Leningrad region surrounding St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.

The main target was the Baltic port of Ust-Luga, located approximately 110 kilometres west of the city. The facility is considered one of Russia’s two most important ports for exporting petroleum products.

The port was struck and caught fire, with smoke and flames visible in numerous videos and even to the naked eye from Estonian territory. The regional governor reported that Russian air defences had managed to shoot down 150 Ukrainian OWA drones during the engagement.

Regardless of how many drones were intercepted and how many successfully reached their targets, Russian forces appear to have fought an intense and evidently chaotic battle while defending the Leningrad region.

Conflicting reports of losses in the Leningrad region and silence from the Russian Ministry of Defence

On 11 November, Russian military bloggers began reporting significant losses. Initially, they published a black-and-white photograph showing a Ka-52 attack helicopter. Since descriptions of „very heavy” losses seemed inconsistent with the destruction of a single aircraft, commentators suspected that two helicopters of this type might have been lost.

The Ka-52 is an attack helicopter frequently employed to counter one-way attack drones. Subsequently, reports emerged concerning the loss of a Mi-8 transport helicopter. We therefore initially assumed that the losses involved a Ka-52 and a Mi-8.

Later, one Russian channel reported the „loss of three crews”, while another claimed that seven aircrew members had been killed. This led to speculation that the total losses might have included two Ka-52 helicopters, each with a crew of two, and one Mi-8 helicopter carrying two pilots and a flight engineer.

Even at that stage, rumours were circulating about a MiG-31 heavy interceptor aircraft, which had allegedly shot down at least one Russian helicopter by mistake.

However, subsequent reports suggested that the MiG-31, which also has a two-person crew, had itself been among the aircraft lost that night. Russia therefore probably lost an interceptor aircraft, an attack helicopter and a multirole helicopter, together with their crews.

The Russian Ministry of Defence has not yet confirmed these losses. Nor have the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported them. However, the latter would not necessarily be expected to do so, as the reported incidents did not involve Ukrainian forces shooting down Russian aircraft.

Friendly fire from Russian air defences?

All indications suggest that the Russian aircraft may have fallen victim to friendly fire from their own forces. Mid-air collisions may also have occurred.

The apparent confusion between Ukrainian one-way attack drones and a large MiG-31 interceptor is particularly puzzling. However, it is also possible that an air defence missile simply locked onto the Russian aircraft automatically.