Drone-gate maidan?

Fake Flamingo, real graft. Sorosites strike back. Corruption and wunderwaffen.

The cold war between Zelensky and the liberal ‘Sorosites’ continues.

Now, the journalists sponsored by the US (formerly) and (now) the EU are trying to spark a political explosion - accusing Zelensky’s coterie of earning super-profits from western aid for Ukrainian superweapons that either don’t exist, don’t work properly, or are vastly over-valued.

For context: Back in late July, Zelensky tried to liquidate the independence of the western-created anti-corruption organs, the latest move in a long-running battle. After the EU forced him to stand down, Zelensky’s security services have continued their battle against the anti-corruption organs, as I wrote here.

And now, the Sorosites have struck back.

It all revolves around Zelensky’s wunderwaffen of the year - the so-called Flamingo cruise missile. Western-funded Ukrainian journalists have been claiming that the Flamingo is a farce, a non-existent rocket whose only purpose is to channel western military aid towards the president’s office.

In response, Zelensky’s administration has been sending Security Service (SBU) agents to the homes of journalists.

But it isn’t just the Sorosites that are angry. Drone experts fighting in the war that have sounded the alarm on the Flamingo farce are apparently being sent to the trenches as infantry troops.

The main drone expert targeted, Yury Kasyanov, has been working with drones at the frontlines since 2014. His credentials, many would claim, are impeccable. He even draws attention to his 100,000 facebook followers to the fact that it was his drone unit whose drone reached the Red Square back in May 2023.

Kasyanov now claims that the government is trying to kill him and his men for speaking out. Today, he called on patriotic citizens to gather in front of the presidential administration.

‘Mr President! Stop the destruction of my unit, which bombs Moscow.’

Interestingly, this immensely popular (20 thousand likes) facebook post calling for protests featured a photo of him with a cardboard poster - the same strategy used in the July anti-Zelensky protests.

And the same forces that fought Zelensky then are supporting Kasyanov now - media that used to be funded by USAID, and which is currently owned by Soros’s business partner, Czech financier Tomas Fiala.

I covered Fiala and his tensions with the Ukrainian government here

The Sorosites seem to have high hopes. In one of his latest October 4 interviews, Kasyanov worries (or promises) that his revelations will lead to ‘serious political unrest’ in Ukraine.

Indeed, Kasyanov has been hard at work before what he claims is his imminent demise. And Fiala’s press has been overjoyed to relay his message to hundreds of thousands of viewers:

Today, I will today go into the following topics covered in detail by Kasyanov in his many interviews and facebook posts:

— Why the much-trumpeted Flamingo rockets — supposedly produced through quite real funds from the Danish and Ukrainian government — don’t actually exist. How the CEO of ‘feminist’ company producing the Flamingos, with no background in military matters, was chosen because of her experience in show business alongside Zelensky and his sidekick Yermak

— The government’s ineffective interceptor drone project and the corruption schemes involved. Quite relevant for my European users, since the western media is currently claiming that the EU should copy Ukraine’s supposedly successful experience with interceptor drones. Kasyanov instead points to the far cheaper and more effective use of missile-based air defense systems in Russia and Israel.

— Faked official statistics on the number of Russian missiles and drones struck down.

— What Ukraine’s 2024 triumphantly announced ‘Palyanitsya’ ‘drone missile’ has in common with the German V-1 missile of the 1940s. And why the V-1 was so much more cost-effective with the same results.

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now. - Gravity’s Rainbow

As it turns out, there is plenty to compare it to!

The Flamingo flies?

Back in late August, the western media began hyping up the Flamingo missile.

Fire Point, the Ukrainian company that claimed to have developed the missile, stated that the Flamingo could carry a 1150kg warhead and travel 3,000 kilometers. They also boasted that they’d come up with it in only nine months time, and that it is ‘completely Ukrainian-made’. Kasyanov, it should be noted, pointed out that the likes of the American Tomahawk or the Russian Kalibr cruise missile took around 10 years to develop.

Besides that, much of the August 21 Politico article dedicated to it made a big deal of the pink color of the missile, the female sex of the CEO of Fire Point, and the fact that the missile would supposedly pose problems for ‘macho Russian leader Vladimir Putin’ and his ‘big dick energy’.

Zelensky claimed at the time that Ukraine would have sizable numbers of these missiles by December. The Politico article hypothesized that the missile ‘could dramatically affect the balance of power between Kyiv and Moscow.’

But the Flamingo would dominate headlines in Ukraine quite a bit sooner, for rather different reasons. Just a few days after the Politico article, on August 29, the (formerly) USAID-funded publication KyivIndependent released a devastating scoop:

According to the KyivIndependent, Fire Point was under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). This is the very same organ that Zelensky tried to take control of back in July until he was forced to give up by the EU and pro-western forces in Ukraine.

Furthermore, the Kyiv Independent claimed that the NABU probe into Fire Point began right before Zelensky’s attempted crackdown on the NABU. Coincidence?

The Kyiv Independent pointed out that Fire Point was ‘virtually unknown outside of Ukraine’s defense circles, despite appearing to be one of the largest — if not the largest — recipient of Defense Ministry drone budget funds’. According to the KyivIndendent, the ‘NABU is probing concerns that Fire Point inflated either the value of its components or the number of drones it delivers to the military, or both’.

Indeed, the scale of the corruption seems to be very impressive:

According to documents seen by the Kyiv Independent, the firm sold 13.2 billion hryvnia worth of its FP-1 long-range drones — roughly $320 million — to the government in 2024. Per its annual budget, the Defense Ministry spent a total of 43 billion hryvnia ($1.04 billion) on drones that year, giving Fire Point just under a third of the total.

[Fire Point CEO] Iryna Terekh told the Kyiv Independent that the firm sold around 2,000 long-range drones in 2024. The firm sells the drones for roughly $55,000 each, which would total around $110 million in sales.

Between 2023 and 2024, the company’s revenue, according to publicly available corporate documentation, grew from $4 million to over $100 million. Terekh told the Kyiv Independent that Fire Point’s staff grew from 18 in 2023 to 2,200 employees in the present day. 

The two industry sources allege that within a short time after formation in 2023, the company was turning out barely functional drones while receiving massive preferential funding from the government.

So why on earth would this unknown company enjoy such generosity from the government?

It turns out that while the management of Fire Point has no experience in drones, it does have experience in show business. In fact, before the war they worked alongside Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 comedy studio. Not only that, they were close to the head of Zelensky’s presidential administration, film producer Andriy Yermak:

The people formally linked to Fire Point are new to the drone industry. The company’s two publicly identifiable leaders are Yehor Skalyha, the legal owner, and CEO Terekh.

Terekh

Following the start of the full-scale invasion, the two fundraised for a non-profit organization called Civic Hub, which turned into a long-range drone project, according to the NGO’s website and social media posts. Terekh also ran Frieden, a charity fund based in Germany.

Skalyha, for his part, is a veteran of Ukraine’s film industry and did the location scouting for Ukrainian movies “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” and “Egregor.”

The corporate entity Fire Point was under the name Centrocast until formal ownership was handed over to Skalyha in February 2023, accompanied by the name change to Fire Point, per publicly available corporate documents.

Terekh claims that she runs Fire Point along with Skalyha and Denys Shtylerman, an engineer and designer, and says they funded the project themselves until the Ukrainian government started buying their drones.

Back in 2019, Skalyha signed a letter of protest against former President Petro Poroshenko’s attack on Ukraine’s film agency, alongside other members of Ukraine’s film industry, including current Presidential Office Head Andriy Yermak and several Kvartal associates.

Terekh’s background is equally unrelated to the defense industry. Her previous firm, the Terekh.Group, created artful concrete installations, for which she ended up on Forbes Ukraine’s 30 under 30 list in 2022.

Then, in December of last year, she was selected to be on a business council that met in the President’s Office, in the ranks of many of the wealthiest businesspeople in the country. Sira Rechovyna, the corporate entity behind Terekh.Group, has never reported an annual revenue above $70,000.

And at the end of April, Yermak named both Terekh and Skalyha to a new government council of 82 businesspeople, alongside business leaders from cellular giant Kyivstar and Ukraine’s answer to Amazon, Rozetka. In that council, Terekh was listed under Terekh.Group.

Besides their relationship with Zelensky and Yermak, there have also been many rumors that the company is managed by Timur Mindich. The secretive Mindich, a co-owner of Kvartal 95, has supposedly become extremely influential in wartime - he has been called ‘Zelensky’s wallet’. I wrote about the Mindich mystery and his supposed golden toilet here.

And naturally, the good citizens of the European Union are helping out with Fire Point’s feminist innovations:

A source with knowledge of Fire Point’s contracts says the company is set to receive more than $1 billion in 2025 from government contracts. Terekh acknowledged receiving funds via the “Danish model” of European funding going to Fire Point via the Defense Ministry.

Fire Point also received funding as part of a 5-billion-euro deal with the German government, announced in May, Terekh told the Kyiv Independent.

Of course, Fire Point didn’t let such attacks slide. On September 2, the editor of the Kyiv Independent wrote on facebook that her publication had received an official letter from the head of Fire Point, Yehor Skalyha. In it, he demanded a retraction of the claims that the NABU was investigating Fire Point.

The letter also promised to get Zelensky’s loyal gestapo on Fire Point’s case - Skalyha said he would report the Kyiv Independent for state treason to the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU/SSU). The slander against the Flamingo was, naturally, commissioned by ‘the aggressor state’, Russia.

On October 1, the Kyiv Independent even claimed that an SBU agent was staking out the house of their chief editor:

Launch the Kasyanov

But the Kyiv Independent isn’t the only force sounding the alarm. Over the past week, another name has increasingly dominated the headlines of pro-western, anti-Zelensky media - Yury Kasyanov.

Kasyanov is a drone expert who has been fighting in the war since 2014. He was critical of president Petro Poroshenko’s (2014-19) various fake wunderwaffen as well, so he can’t simply be described as another one of Poroshenko’s loyal bloggers.

And Kasyanov has been hard at work uncovering the fraud in the Flamingo, Fire Point, and the government’s much hyped project of interceptor drones to stop Russian air attacks.

And in response, on October 3 the government dissolved Kasyanov’s drone unit. Kasyanov claims that his troops are being sent off to the infantry to face likely death because of his outspoken criticism.

Consequently, media owned by Soros’s business partner Tomas Fiala has been frantically publishing interviews with Kasyanov. Both of Fiala’s most well-known publications, Ukrainska Pravda and NV have been hard at work helping Kasyanov spread the word on Zelensky and Yermak’s corruption and spiteful revenge.

The latest move came today - Kasyanov posted a photo of himself holding a poster pleading the president not to dissolve his drone units. Notably, it is the same cardboard style as the late July anti-Zelensky protests, which were also strongly supported by Fiala’s media. Kasyanov promised to stand in front of the president’s office with his message - commenters said they would do the same. Almost 20,000 people liked the post.

Perhaps it’s time for another maidan, even though the last one didn’t work too well? Though most Ukrainians care little for the affairs of the incompetent anti-corruption organs, the topic of military corruption may stir the hearts of many more.

Let’s now take a look at what Kasyanov has been saying in some more detail .

Flamingo

We’ll begin with the Flamingo affair.

Kasyanov gave his theory on what is really behind the Flamingo facade on September 27:

The horrors of war easily mask stupidity, glaring technical incompetence, fraud, and outright embezzlement. Let’s analyze the latest batch of unscrupulous statements from the leadership of the company Fire Point.

There has been no combat use of the FP-5 “Flamingo” cruise missile to date. The leak via internet channels and “Militarny” citing so-called “military circles” about a “Flamingo” attack on a base of Russian border guards near Armiansk does not correspond to reality.

The launch of three missiles in a row towards the Black Sea, presented as evidence of an attack, was simply a launch towards the Black Sea, without warheads and without being used against combat targets.

Satellite images show some damage to buildings on the base, but the nature of the damage does not match the declared payload of more than 1 ton. The damage is characteristic of a munition weighing up to 50 kg.

If there had been combat uses of the “Flamingo” missile, the General Staff, the Minister of Defense, and the President himself would have undoubtedly reported it. No one would have missed such news.

There are not many factories in the world that produce turbojet aircraft engines, and only 5 countries produce such complex engineering products – the USA, Great Britain, France, russia, and China.

Ukraine lost the ability to produce jet engines at the “Motor Sich” plant [I covered this fascinating factory here - EIU], which previously produced AI-25 engines, the very engines that Fire Point installs on its “Flamingos.”

AI-25 engine - EIU

The cost of a factory to produce jet engines is estimated from $200 million (for assembly) to $1 billion; the cost of a full-cycle industrial complex, including related productions, is $1.5 billion. This is only the cost of workshops, equipment, machine tools, and tooling.

The price of trained, qualified personnel is generally difficult to calculate – in our country, such personnel have practically disappeared, and those who were assembling something in Motor Sich from old Soviet stock and doing repairs are, for the most part, old Soviet-era personnel.

Therefore, the triumphant statements by the architect of concrete furniture about Fire Point building a plant to produce a “licensed copy” of the AI-25 engine are a complete bluff.

And now for some numbers:

From 1967 to 1998, 6,300 AI-25 engines were produced. That means the production rate of the AI-25 engine during the high demand of the second half of the 20th century was 203 units per year, or 17 units per month.

Just 17 units per month!

I would really like to see the factory that can produce AI-25 engines at a rate of 7 units per day, as promised by the leadership of Fire Point, who don’t even know basic math and are unfamiliar with engine manufacturing.

Let’s continue. Fire Point claims to have bought “thousands” of old AI-25 engines to start production of “Flamingo” missiles at a rate of 50 missiles per month, and from next month – 200 missiles per month, while about 80 missiles have already been produced.

Let’s do the math.

So, a total of 6,300 AI-25 engines were produced. Most of these engines have long been exhausted and sent for scrap metal. Some were lost with the aircraft during operation.

These engines were mass-equipped on L-39 trainer aircraft and Yak-40 passenger aircraft.

2,900 L-39 aircraft were produced, most of which were sent... oops! – to russia. A number of spare AI-25 engines were also sent there. Approximately – no less than 300 units. So, that’s 3,200 engines, of which 80% ended up in the territory of the enemy state – approximately 2,500 units.

1,012 Yak-40 aircraft were produced. Each aircraft had 3 AI-25 engines. Total engines: 3,036. An unknown number of spare engines supplied to Aeroflot, but it is known that over 120 aircraft were sold to other countries, and over 700 aircraft were operated in russia, meaning another 2,100 engines that Fire Point cannot buy.

A Yak-40

So, no less than 2,500 + 2,100 = 4,600 AI-25 engines are unavailable because they are in russia or have long been scrapped in russia.

That leaves 6,300 - 4,600 = 1,700 engines that might be outside russia. No less than 80% of these engines have been scrapped, since over 95% of the aircraft they were installed on have already been scrapped.

For example, only about 40 Yak-40 aircraft are still in operation worldwide, and most are in russia. No more than 250 L-39 aircraft are in operation worldwide. And all these aircraft also require spare engines.

Therefore, Fire Point may have access to buy (if they are sold) no more than 250 old AI-25 engines.

And to build a factory, you need at least $1.0 billion, about 2,000 highly qualified workers, and no less than 2 years.

What serial production of 50 or even 200 “Flamingo” missiles are they talking about, if out of the 250 theoretically available engines, they have already used at least 80 (according to the company’s statements)?..

Only about 170 engines are left, or less...

Very funny.

Many have also pointed to Zelensky’s recent pleads for American Tomahawk missiles as a sign of the Flamingo’s fakeness. Why should Ukraine need Tomahawks, if it supposedly already has Flamingos which fly further and carry an explosive load more than two times larger?

Kasyanov wrote this on the 29th:

The Ukrainian request for ‘Tomahawks’ is a complete, one-hundred percent admission of the fact that the ‘Flamingo’ doesn’t fly, that it is just another missile PR campaign for domestic consumption and to cover up the embezzlement of financial aid from our dear, trusting partners. We are talking about colossal sums of money.

Interceptor drones

But Kasyanov hasn’t been content to just criticize the Flamingo. He has also torn into the government’s newest favorite topic, their supposed plans to stop Russian drone attacks through the use of interceptor drones. I wrote here about the frenzy for interceptor drones and their limitations back in July.

Kasyanov wrote this on September 20:

They’re reporting that last night there were 580 Shaheds and over forty missiles. 583 out of 619 targets were shot down or suppressed by EW [electronic warfare - EIU]. So, 36 drones and missiles broke through. Overall, that’s bad, but not a bad result for assessing air defense effectiveness.

However, the picture doesn’t add up for me; the numbers don’t tally. In Dnipro alone, as a result of the night attack, 22 residential buildings, 8 schools and kindergartens, the buildings and dormitories of two vocational schools, an electric transport depot, several trolleybuses, and the contact network were damaged. Over 40 impact sites in total. And there were also hits in the Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions.

I’m subscribed to the air threat monitor for Kyiv and the Kyiv region. It’s interesting to watch how the same Shahed or group of Shaheds flies first over Troieshchyna, then ends up in the Boryspil district, then along the Stolytsne Shose highway reaches Vasylkiv, flies over Boiarka, enters Bucha, back to Boiarka, [EIU - these are all suburbs in Kiev] and – hooray! – leaves the boundaries of Kyiv region. All clear! And where is the air defense?..

The entire region is tracking the movement of the Shaheds, hiding in corridors, but where are the interceptor drones?.. Where are the flamingos that should be flying in the opposite direction in large flocks, since production rates have increased to a record 50 units per month – even the Russians don’t make that many “Kalibr” cruise missiles (30 units/month).

Either a reconnaissance drone flies over Kyiv all day, or Shaheds roam the district. Something doesn’t add up.

Meanwhile, I reliably and accurately get targeted for posts like this. The command ordered my “psychological profile” from staff psychologists to study my “moral and psychological state,” reasonably suspecting that only a madman would dare to challenge Yermak himself.

Former Poroshenko-fanboys, top volunteers, and expired MPs are circulating a screenshot of a small piece of text from my large article in “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia,” written several months ago. The article proposed, among other things, using reusable interceptor drones for the air defense of Kyiv.

Reusable!

Relatively large, with long flight time, good optics, other sensors, an onboard computer, various useful software, and good, varied weaponry.

That is, I proposed an unmanned analogue of the helicopters and light aircraft that are now actively used to fight Shaheds.

But my opponents only read headlines. They didn’t read the article, and couldn’t even manage the screenshot.

Meanwhile, in Poland, exactly such a reusable drone for combating Shaheds and similar threats is being developed.

The estimated price is 55 thousand dollars, which strangely coincides with the price of the Ukrainian disposable “Shahed” FP-1 from the company Fire Point, at which it was sold in bulk to our state using Danish money over a year ago (the price has increased significantly since then).

The Polish reusable unmanned interceptor HAASTA is in the photo. There is an option to arm it with a machine gun.

Kasyanov made his thoughts on interceptor drones clearer in a September 20 post:

I do not deny the necessity and usefulness of interceptor drones, but only in combating single targets and in areas where serious anti-aircraft missile systems cannot be deployed – primarily in the frontline zone.

Interceptor drones are not suitable for fighting mass Shahed raids – they have low speed, and if the speed is high, the flight time is short because the battery drains quickly. They are critically dependent on weather – in rain, snow, and strong wind, interceptors don’t fly, while Shaheds do. They are dependent on the human factor – operators are needed, many operators, support personnel are needed for each crew, radars are needed – many radars, because they are needed for every crew.

Of course, there are experienced crews that can shoot down a dozen Shaheds in one night. I know that. So what?.. While they are destroying their dozen, other dozens and hundreds of Shaheds fly right over their heads, because one operator means one interceptor drone – one downed Shahed in about 20 minutes.

Anyone who has been on the flight path of Shaheds, for example, near Shostka, where I have spent the night in an open field more than once, knows that Shaheds fly at intervals of 30-90 seconds, there are many of them, and to shoot down this horde, hundreds of experienced operators are needed. Hundreds of radars and good weather.

The President and the Minister of Defense claim that soon we will be launching 1000 interceptors per day. Great. That’s about 100 million UAH per day, or 36 billion UAH per year. For significantly less money, we could create our own short-range anti-aircraft missile system adapted to fight Shaheds. Such air defense systems protect Moscow and St. Petersburg, which is why our Ukrainian drones don’t reach there.

Let me repeat – Shaheds are bombing Kyiv, where the air defense is drone and machine-gun based, while Ukrainian drones don’t reach Moscow, where the air defense is missile-based. Is there any need to argue further?..

But let’s get back to the money. 100 million UAH per day is a sufficient amount to develop and launch into serial production an inexpensive short-range anti-aircraft missile system.

On September 17, Kasyanov went into more detail on the ineffectiveness and corruption schemes associated with interceptor drones:

Near Kyiv, a logistics center of the “Epicenter” chain was bombed by Shaheds. It burned for a long time. The company stated that its total losses from enemy attacks since the start of the war have already exceeded $1 billion. And three days before this, President Zelenskyy stated that to destroy 800 Shaheds, approximately 1600 interceptor drones are needed. What is the connection between these two events? – A direct one.

Let me remind you that since the beginning of this year, the military-political leadership of our country has bet on interceptor drones for air defense organization. They promised to buy up all interceptors on the market outright, set the task to produce more and more of them, and allocated billions of hryvnias for this program. Yet the Shaheds keep flying and flying. What’s the problem?..

Interceptor drones are essentially the same operator-controlled FPV drones, adapted for searching and destroying aerial targets. A kind of ersatz missile with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead; better optics – as it’s hard to navigate in the sky and find fast, maneuverable targets; with good night vision (thermal imager) when used at night.

Advantages of interceptors: proven technology, solved organizational issues – the same FPV group working in the kill-zone can also intercept aerial targets; lack of expensive equipment (when working during the day against enemy reconnaissance drones, at night against Shaheds – it’s more complicated); the perceived “cheapness” of the solution, justified when working against enemy reconnaissance drones, but not against Shaheds.

Another important “plus” – interceptor drones made from Chinese drone kits can also be “successfully” built by known “young talents” – firms that emerged just a year and a half to two years ago and immediately captured the lion’s share of the market through their proximity to power. In short - interceptors are an easy way for “their” people - lawyers, location and PR managers, film producers - to make money.

The obvious disadvantages of interceptor drones became vividly apparent during attempts to use them to repel mass Shahed drone attacks. This is precisely why there aren’t many videos online of successful Shahed interceptions by drones, despite statements (including from the president) about shooting down 100-150 Shaheds with FPV drones per night. There aren’t many videos – because there aren’t many shootdowns. And there won’t be.

It turned out that each drone sortie requires an operator – for some reason, drones don’t fly without an operator. And if Shaheds fly in a swarm – 100-200 of them at 1-2 minute intervals – you need to place at least 100-200 operators along their path to try and intercept this swarm.

Clearly, we don’t have that many operators (in one place). These operators and drones will inevitably interfere with each other, operating on the same or similar frequencies, using radars that cause interference, attacking the same Shahed with multiple drones and missing other Shaheds during a collective attack.

It also turned out (and it’s been known in principle for a long time) that the reaction time of an interception group to a passing Shahed is too long – they simply don’t have time to deploy; the flight time of an interceptor copter is extremely limited – up to 20 minutes in the best case; the speed of the interceptor is insufficient to catch up with a Shahed, and success is only possible if you launch right in front of the Shahed, if you manage to spot it in the night sky; and finding a Shahed in the night sky is a quest in itself.

Furthermore, light interceptor drones cannot operate in strong winds, and in rain or snow their cameras see nothing, whereas Shaheds fly in practically any weather.

And here we recall what the president said – to destroy 800 Shaheds, 1600 interceptors are needed. Straight out of an interceptor drone manufacturer’s brochure. Even if the probability of shooting down a Shahed is 0.5 – meaning one successful attack out of two – this, again, is under ideal conditions: the weather permits, the operator is experienced, the crew is coordinated, the radar provides targeting, and the Shahed is, as if on purpose, hovering in one spot like a reconnaissance drone.

In reality, everything is much more complicated – there are very few experienced operators for working in the sky, at night; crews were long ago sent to the front as “non-critical elements of air defense”; we have a pitifully small number of radars for detecting Shaheds across all the Armed Forces; and Shaheds fly in a tight formation, so the operator simply doesn’t have time to launch a second interceptor drone if the first one misses the target.

This is why the “Epicenter” logistics center burned down, and why hundreds, if not thousands, of other business objects, infrastructure objects have burned down, residential buildings have been destroyed, and people have died. This “simple solution,” invented by the “office of simple solutions,” doesn’t work. Meanwhile, the “insider” interceptor manufacturing companies have already earned tens of millions of dollars and will earn hundreds of millions more.

If “Epicenter” had allocated from its now-shrunken revenues even a part equivalent to ten percent of the losses from enemy air attacks – $100 million out of $1 billion – then with that money, it would have been entirely possible long ago, in the shortest possible time, to develop our own anti-aircraft missile system, similar to the Russian “Pantsir,” the Israeli “Iron Dome”; to create anti-drone missiles similar to the Swedish Saab Nimbrix or the American Hydra 70 APKWS.

Small anti-aircraft missile systems have long proven their undeniable advantages over interceptor drones: all-weather capability, maximum automation – there is simply no operator, high rate of fire – missiles are launched with minimal intervals, high speed of the interceptor missile, low cost of the anti-drone missile – $10-20 thousand with a kill probability greater than 0.9 – meaning ten missiles guarantee the destruction of 9 targets.

Six anti-aircraft missile systems with a sufficient missile supply (the Russian “Pantsir-SMD-E” has a ammunition load of 48 missiles, which are easy to reload) – could reliably close the sky over Kyiv and the region. The cost of that same “Pantsir” is about $14 million, which is quite accessible for our business, and much cheaper than a whole armada of interceptor drones, which are ineffective against Shaheds.

The office of simple solutions isn’t working. There’s a lack of competence. This isn’t like making a movie.

Palianitsya

In fact, of course, Zelensky’s love for questionable wunderwaffen has a long history. Kasyanov claims that his August 2024 callout of Zelensky’s ‘Palyanitsya’ ‘missile drone’ first sparked anger from the president’s office:

For several days now, I’ve been reading with astonishment the reports about the new Ukrainian wonder-weapon, the “Palianytsia.” After all, no such “missile-drones” exist, never have existed, and never will exist.

Let me remind you that the first “aircraft-projectile,” as they were called then, or “flying bomb” (as they were classified then), or in the new Ukrainian fashion, “missile-drones,” were used by the Germans against Britain (and not only) during the Second World War.

The German “Palianytsia,” the V-1 (Fi-103, “Fieseler 103”), had a jet engine, an autopilot, was launched from a catapult, had a range of 280 km (later increased to 500 km), and carried a warhead weighing from 500 kg to 1 ton.

From 1944 to 1945, the Germans manufactured 25,000 of these “missile-drones.” They launched them very intensively – up to 100 units per day (compare that with our drone launches at the swamps [Russia - EIU] – we are still far from such rates).

10,500 flying bombs were launched at Britain – in London alone, over 6,000 people were killed and nearly 18,000 injured; 23,000 buildings were destroyed and over 100,000 damaged. These projectiles were also fired at Liège (3,141 launches), Antwerp (2,183 launches), Brussels (151 launches), and Paris.

By the way, the German “missile-drone” was not expensive – about 3,500 Reichsmarks. At the 1941 exchange rate to the dollar – $8,800. In today’s money – approximately $160,000. An adequate price for a cruise missile.

Yes, yes – our wonder-weapon-missile-drone is nothing other than a cruise missile. The German V-1 was the world’s first mass-produced cruise missile, no matter what they called it back then. In general, the line between unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles is very fine – put a jet engine on an aircraft, and there you have a cruise missile, or a “missile-drone,” according to our new Ukrainian classification.

What are the advantages of cruise missiles compared to unmanned kamikaze aircraft like the “Shahed”?.. – High speed: a missile can reach the target faster, and the enemy might not have time to take countermeasures or evacuate from the strike area. A cruise missile can potentially carry a more powerful warhead. A cruise missile is harder to shoot down, and Shahed-hunters with machine guns are less effective against them.

At the same time, cruise missiles are quite effectively shot down by anti-aircraft missiles with thermal homing heads – because they have a more pronounced thermal signature. Disadvantages also include structural complexity and higher cost.

By the way, how much could a “Palianytsia” cost? If we don’t account for the funds spent on development and testing, the cost of the unit consists of the cost of electronics – from $3,000 in a budget version to $50,000 with a CRPA antenna, redundancy, a satellite modem, and an optical navigation module. The airframe – fuselage, wings, empennage – would cost $3,000-$10,000, depending on the design and technologies used. The most expensive part is the turbojet engine; judging by the video, an engine with about 100 kg of thrust is used – such an engine can be bought on AliExpress for $50,000-$70,000. Well, let’s add another twenty thousand or so for labor costs, rent, compensation for development costs, and add the legally permitted 25% profit margin set by the state.

In the end, we get the same $160,000 that the German V-1 “missile-drone” cost. This is, of course, less than $1 million.

Strategic failure

Kasyanov hasn’t just been criticizing Zelensky’s fake wunderwaffen.

Though he has positioned himself since 2014 as a drone expert, Kasyanov is not hesitating to criticize Ukrainian military strategy in general. On September 25, he wrote a popular post responding to the recent article (also in a ‘Sorosite’ publication, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia) by Valery Zaluzhny.

I analyzed Zaluzhny’s article here

In it, Kasyanov essentially agreed with Zaluzhny’s diagnosis that Russia was exiting the drone-induced stalemate of 2023-24. Kasyanov also echoed the popular criticism I covered from Azov leader Andriy Biletsky, that Russia’s centralized approach is beating Ukraine’s decentralized corruption:

As it was two years ago, and three years ago, a technological leap is needed, a breakthrough in the development of drone technologies and small air defense systems - both against Shaheds in the rear, and against FPV drones, reconnaissance drones, and bomber drones on the front line and in the near rear.

This is a very difficult task. To surpass a resource-rich adversary, which has a developed (compared to us) defense industry and engineering-design base, is impossible through the efforts of individual, small private companies that lack sufficient funding and do not rely on a developed industrial base.

Not even the court-favored “Fire Point” will be able to do this, no matter how much partner money is poured into it or what support it receives from the highest officials of the state.

A consolidation of all forces is needed. A state program is needed. Finally, we need one single person in charge, responsible for its implementation. If we don’t close the sky and achieve technological superiority in offensive weapons - we will lose everything.

Kasyanov has been pushing on all the right buttons. Kasyanov summarized some of the most painful questions to the Ukrainian government in a September 26 post:

There are things that are not spoken about. Or more accurately, they are spoken about, but only ‘in the kitchen,’ as it was in the Soviet Union. You will never read about this in the media, nor hear it on the telethon.

Why weren’t we prepared for the war? Who is to blame for the failures of the first months of the war? Why were thousands of our fighters encircled in Mariupol? Why are they still in captivity? Where is Bakanov [Zelensky’s friend and head of the Security Services who fled Ukraine in early 2022 following massive Russian successes, but has never been punished - EIU]? Where is Arestovych [Zelensky advisor who turned into a ‘pro-Russian propagandist’ and left the country after giving a bunch of ridiculously optimistic predictions - EIU]? Was there any sense in defending Bakhmut? Who was leaking information about our counteroffensive to the media? What was the purpose of the attacks on the Belgorod region? How did the Kursk operation end—in failure or victory? Who is making billions from drones, and why are there not enough drones for the troops? What are assault troops, and why are they needed when we have air assault troops and assault brigades? And how are we any better than the enemy if we practice ‘meat assaults’?...

The last question is a reference to Zelensky’s recently announced assault forces, which I covered on Friday. Like many, Kasyanov is very skeptical about them.

The accusations

Let’s end with a look at the fierce struggle that has ripened between Kasyanov and the government. Kasyanov claims that Zelensky and his cronies have been so enraged by his criticism that they are resorting to murder.

On October 3, he accused Yermak of trying to kill him and his men in a post that received 10,000 likes:

Every day, the fighters of our unit are dragged for interrogations to the Internal Security Service (ISS) and for polygraph tests. The task has been set to find any compromising material on Yuriy Kasyanov.

They are digging in two directions – receiving improper benefits during the execution of combat missions and the use of “slave labor” of servicemen at Kasyanov’s enterprise.

On both counts, it’s a miss: I was on all combat missions of our unit and did the hardest work, probably – reconnaissance, searching for locations to deploy the unit, safe withdrawal; I participated in all operations.

Regarding the “slave labor” – that’s an absolute lie; on the contrary – my enterprise has been providing our unit with everything necessary since 2022, until May 2023 – even drones, through the business and the volunteer fund I created, over 2 million UAH are transferred to the military monthly, we provide the unit with over 2000 square meters of premises, including bomb shelters, storage places for weapons, combat units, drones.

The unit uses 14 units of automotive equipment, of which 4 are purely volunteer-provided, and another 3 were bought with volunteer money and registered with the military unit. All repairs and modernization of the automotive equipment, half of the fuel, and half of all Starlinks we provide ourselves. Essentially everything – from pencils, office and toilet paper to communication systems, REP systems, new drones – we provide ourselves.

The zealous colonels from the ISS are intimidating servicemen, confiscating phones, breaking into secret chats to find out where the unit is actually located. So that later a Shahed or a missile can hit us.

I am addressing Yermak. If this madness does not stop tomorrow, I will file a report with NABU about one very interesting enterprise that is in the orbit of your vassal, where slave labor of servicemen is indeed used, and which produces absolutely ineffective drones that are written off immediately after launch.

And to you, Andriy Borysovych, I highly recommend drying some rusks. Who are you anyway? – I didn’t see you at the first or second Maidans, nor at the beginning of the war in 2014 near Sloviansk, nor in 2015, nor in 2016, nor in 2022 when we defended Kyiv not for money but because it is our Kyiv, and our Ukraine.

We did not elect you and you were not appointed. You are an impostor and a self-loving dandy.

I even suggested that you make a deal – in exchange for the ability for us to conduct combat work normally. But you are so arrogant that Ukraine for you means nothing without you. But you will break your teeth on Kasyanov. Don’t bother looking for grounds for criminal prosecution – it would be more effective to just kill me. You simply have no other options. I will not back down.

By the way, Kasyanov is also reacting to parallel accusations that he has been using slave labour coming from journalist Volodymyr Boiko. I won’t go into Boiko’s accusations too much, but you may recall him from my previous articles on the Sorosites. Boiko is an inveterate enemy of said Sorosites, and they in turn accuse him of working for the benefit of Zelensky’s elite.

In any case, October seems set to be filled with intrigues and political battles. Yermak must be quaking in his boots!