The Russian Army had serious problems with UAVs in Georgia too... these very small targets have very small RCS and very small IR signatures and were hard to spot visually to engage with weapons like Igla or Zu-23 due to the height they operated at.
Probably is better to clarify this point because it is often cited in comical western "analysis" of South Ossetia War - the same that, pointing at the forces involved in the conflict, cite correctly the Georgian troops active in the theatre and for the Russian side ....
the number of operatives of the entire 58th Army and the whole 76th Airborne Division ! so to suggest
DISHONESTLY that the quick victory by part of Russian Forces has been achieved through a crushing numerical superiority when ,in
REALITY the situation was almost the
OPPOSITE.-
The cited instances where those Georgian UAV was outside the engagement zone of Russian Forces was those in areas where elements of
AIRBORNE ASSAULT REGIMENTS (like the 104th and 234th) was conducting separated deep operations against Georgian bases and assets
.
Those regiments was equiped with some dozen of BMD-2 ,4 to 6 2S9 Nona-S and
two ZU-23-2 on BTR-D chassis -for local air defense- each.
Those Air Assault Regiments are not intended ,obviously, for area defense roles but to quickly cripple and paralize the most critical enemy installations with fulminating deep operations;
moreover Russian ones are
BY A VERY LONG MARGIN the MOST
HEAVILY ARMED and
MOBILE at world , similar regiments of
ANY OTHER airborne division
at world would been
not only uncapable ,for the
lack of any airborne air defense system, to
force the enemy UAVs that would eventually detect one of the airborne squads
at recede quickly or remain at maximum altitude (to remain outside the engagement range of the ZU-23-2 ) but
also to complete theirs operations fast enough (thanks to the speed, protection and fire power offered by the airborne BMD-2 IFV and Nona-S artillery)
to render even the fortuitous contact with one of those UAVs unfruitful from an operative stand point.
The military operation in South Ossetia was conceived to
achieve military subduing of enemy forces within 96 hours from beginning of the conflict, employing the
lowest number of troops and systems among those already present in the proximity of the crisis area ,limiting a
minimum the live and material losses, mantaining a
very strict information denial discipline over NATO observers and analysts for any critical data that could had resulted from the employment of up-to-date systems and theirs CONOPS and .....at the
lowest possible cost, through
highly mobile combined-branch warfare to obtain ,in a
VERY COMPRESSED TIME FRAME , decisive local
force overmatch on the enemy or the rapid degradation of its military capabilities.
Only
THOSE elements in facts match with the necessary edges for conduct a
Large Scale War against a powerful enemy with dozen of different critical contested areas of operation to be fought contemporaneously.
NATO for the same operation against Georgia would have required :
1) The usual four of five months ,minimum, of international embargo to achieve some effect on Georgian capabilities.
2) Naval Forces to reach Black Sea .
3) A following month or two of Air Campaign and cruise missile attacks from Navy units.
4) An eventual ground operation to secure South Ossetian and Abkhatian borders.
All of that
using theirs most up to date weapon systems and tacticts (that national analysts very ,very much enjoy
) with
costs some orders of magnitude higher 
and operational tempo immensely slower ; all those factors are
totally incompatible with a successful large scale coventional conflict against a major enemy.
Returning to the initial subject we can say only that Russian forces have even an excess of options to destroy trivial targets such as the tactical surveillance UAVs in question (the proof of that is that when Hermes-450s dared to venture in areas outside Georgian control them was downed almost instantly ,often way before even only closing the intended area
).
UAVs has been found by russian analysts very
useful for prolonged surveillances of not defended or contested areas or to achieve
positional data of the enemy speahead's elements for long range artillery , all at truly negligible costs and without comitting to the task and to the risks costly manned aircraft (like for the downed Tu-22R).
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