The (R)evolution of Drones in the war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has turned drones into one of the most formidable weapons in the arsenal of both warring factions, while innovations in this field advanced at great speed.

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the “breeding grounds” for wide-scale drone-testing

In late September 2020, social media and TV stations around the world broadcast images which, at first glance, resembled snapshots from a video game. Taken by overflying drones, the images showed burning tanks, their turrets having been blown several meters high by the blast, armored personnel carriers, artillery system components and destroyed radar stations or soldiers hiding in trenches. The battle scenes were taken from the Caucasus, where a new war had broken out for the Nagorno-Karabakh province. The destruction shown by drone footage had also been caused by UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was not the first time drones had been used for military purposes. The United States has used them to do reconnaissance flights ever since the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, as well as for airstrikes since the early 2000s. Furthermore, a full-fledged campaign took place in Afghanistan targeting elements of al-Qaeda, with Predator and Reaper among the best-known UAVs to be deployed to that end. Prior to September 2020, however, drones had not been used on a large scale in a military confrontation pitting two conventional forces, nor had they had such a strong impact as in Nagorno-Karabakh, where they played a key role in securing Azerbaijan's victory.

@Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt - MQ-9 Reaper UAV.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

The manner and scale at which drones were used turned the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict into a genuine strategic and tactical laboratory, beyond its regional importance and impact on the warring camps. Lessons learned on the ground would be put to good use less than a year and a half later, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This time around, drones have become an indispensable part of the arsenal of the two belligerent camps, which have embarked on a genuine innovation race in this particular field.

The war in Ukraine. The Bayraktar era: Ukrainians fend off the assault on Kyiv with the help of drones

In the context of a large-scale invasion, where the enemy advances from multiple directions, Ukrainian forces desperately needed real-time information on the positions of Russian forces they were about to engage. At strategic level, the problem was to a large extent solved through the use of a network of military satellites owned by Western states. At tactical level, Ukrainian forces had started conducting reconnaissance flights since the early hours of February 24, using Bayraktar TB-2 drones, purchased before the invasion, as well as small civilian drones. Although they were designed for recreational purposes, being virtually a simple toy, the latter capitalized on their small size drawback to pass the enemy (virtually) undetected.

Bayraktar TB-2

As for Russia, the main drone at its disposal, the Kronshtadt “Orion”, similar to the Bayraktar TB-2, but superior in terms of technical performance, was used for reconnaissance missions and airstrikes with various types of guided missiles, with support from “Orlan-10” and “Oral-30” lightweight UAVs.

The difference in this first phase of the conflict is the use of digital combat systems, designed to identify and mark the target. The Ukrainian forces appear to have held absolute superiority in this technological sector from the first day of the invasion. The use of the “Kropyva” and “Delta” systems, the latter very successfully striking the famous 64-km-long Russian military convoy headed for Kyiv in late February, enabled a coordination of drones of all sizes and categories, never-before-seen in international conflicts.

Russia’s launch of a ballistic and cruise missile bombing campaign in the early days of the war, which continued to grow in intensity and scale, targeting military, but especially civilian targets across Ukraine, prompted the Ukrainian political and military leadership to finally adopt a series of measures designed to somewhat even the odds. Thus, aside from sabotage operations and “Tochka-U” ballistic missile attacks, the territory of the Russian Federation is being targeted by a concerted drone attack campaign. The first operation aimed at hitting a target on enemy territory with the use of a drone reportedly took place on April 25 when, according to Russian media, two Bayraktar TB-2 aircraft were shot down over Bryansk. Were we to trust the Russian media, the next such attack occurred on June 22, in the Rostov oblast near the border, when a major petrochemical refinery was hit.

Phase two: Switchblade and Lancet suicide drones

The spring and early summer of 2022 marked the introduction of two highly lethal systems on the Ukrainian frontline: the US-made Switchblade-300 attack drones (the so-called “kamikaze” or “suicide” drones), delivered to Ukraine in early May, and the already famous Russian ZALA Lancet UAVs (along with ZALA Kub-BLA), which, according to the manufacturer, entered combat service on June 8.

@U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Tyler Forti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

With the emergence and operational generalization of “suicide” attack drones, a new, highly effective type of visual propaganda also started gaining traction. Thus, a typical operation would feature not just the attacking drone, but a second one as well, flying a few dozen meters above the former and filming the entire operation. After the airstrike, we see a typical montage of images taken by the attacking drone, up to the point where the signal is lost as a result of the explosion, followed by pan shots of the damage the target sustained. Simple to produce and efficient from the point of view of propaganda, such footage virtually “flooded” social media, some videos amassing millions of views.

“Switchblade” and “Lancet” are some of the best performing “suicide” drones in their field, although they are clearly outnumbered by commercial drones made in China (the DJI Chinese brand dominates the Ukrainian front), where they are purchased by both camps through e-commerce platforms. They are militarized in the simplest and most effective ways possible: reusable drones are fitted with hand grenade launchers, while “suicide” drones are equipped with PG-7 anti-tank grenade launchers. This type of ammunition was developed as an anti-tank weapon for the infantry, but went obsolete in the meantime and is currently unable to penetrate the front armor of modern or upgraded tanks. On the other hand, if drones carry and aim such launchers at vulnerable parts of armored vehicles (the top turret, the engine compartment plate, the turret ring, etc.), they can safely penetrate the armor and potentially produce some of the most catastrophic effects.

Iranian-made Shahed drones in Russia's arsenal, used for the same purpose as the Nazi V-1 missiles. The Kremlin – the target of Ukrainian drones

On September 13, 2022, the Ukrainian armed forces confirmed the downing of a UAV marked “M214 Geran-2”. This is when the presence of the first Iranian-designed and manufactured HESA Shahed 136 drone was confirmed on the Ukrainian frontline. Since then, this drone model, added in the meantime to manufacturing lines in the Russian military industry, has served the purpose of a terror weapon, similar in function and destination to the German V-1 missile during World War II.

The low manufacturing cost, compared to ballistic missiles that fulfill the same role, in addition to Iran’s relatively large production capacity, facilitated the purchase of this system by the Russian Federation in sizable volumes. Shahed’s low top-speed of maximum 185 km/h, combined with an operating altitude between 60 and 4,000 meters, renders anti-aircraft systems designed to trace and shoot down faster targets such as missiles and aircraft virtually useless. But where advanced targeting, detection and destruction technology has failed, the heavy machine guns fitted on gun mounts in anti-air firing position provide a shooting practice show, drones falling easy prey to their deadly fire.

@Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

As of October 2022, Shahed drones have been used on a large scale against Ukraine, especially against infrastructure, particularly energy targets. More often than not, the drones are launched wave after wave, concurrently with a variety of missiles from Russia's arsenal, from cruise missiles to hypersonic ones like the Kinjal.

Ukraine responded by stepping up its own drone strikes and hitting targets further away from the frontline. One of the most daring such operations in this phase of the war was carried out on December 5, 2022, when Ukrainian forces used Tupolev Tu-141 “Strizh” drones. These unmanned aerial vehicles manufactured in the Soviet Union for reconnaissance missions deep into enemy territory, and later modified to be able to carry explosive charges, launched an attack on the “Engels-2” airbase near Saratov (over 1,000 km off the Ukrainian-Russian border), as well as on the “Dyagilevo” airbase, near Ryazan (800 km away from the border).

At symbolical level, the “drone wars” reached their apex on the night of May 3, 2023, when two drones exploded over the dome of the Senate Palace in the Kremlin, with Russian sources claiming they were of Ukrainian origin (an allegation that was also supported by certain representatives of Western intelligence). Russian officials also claimed these two drones had been destroyed through the use of electronic warfare equipment.

Naval drones, the weapon that allowed Ukraine to challenge Russian supremacy in the Black Sea

In the fall of 2022, the Ukrainian armed forces reached a milestone in the history of military technology. On October 29, they attacked the Russian naval base in Sevastopol with the help of a maritime drone, an operation that was repeated in mid-November against the naval base in Novorossiysk. These remote-controlled surface vessels, which are pretty straightforward in terms of design and construction and incomparably cheaper than a small combat ship, would prove their usefulness in later stages of the conflict, eventually offsetting the Ukrainian Naval Forces’ substandard results.

In 2023 and 2024, attacks carried out by the Ukrainian side involving naval drones against watercraft or targets belonging to the Naval Forces of the Russian Federation continued with more or less success. During this time frame, the following ships were damaged or sunk: the “Pavel Derzhavin” corvette (damaged on October 12); the “Akula” and “Serna” landing ships (sunk on November 10 in Vuzka Bay, the Crimean Peninsula) and a “Tarantul”-class corvette (sunk on December 29 near Sevastopol). In 2024, naval drones have so far hit the corvette “Ivanovets” (February 1), the “Tsezar Kunikov” (February 14) landing ship and the “Sergey Kotov” patrol ship (March 5).

Ukrainian naval drone

The tested efficiency of a weapon system entails copying and adapting it to the needs of the original designated target. Thus, on February 10, 2023, for the first time in the war in Ukraine and in the history of its naval forces, the Russian Federation used a naval drone to strike the Zatoka bridge, a strategic objective that connects the Budjak region to Odesa. The operation did not reap the hoped-for success, but it marked the beginning of a new phase of the naval war in the Black Sea, Russia partially breaking with the (post)Soviet military paradigm, which was centered on the use of various types of conventional warships to achieve a more efficient approach in terms of costs and related risks.

In this phase of the war, the use of drones had become commonplace. In addition to the commercial, militarized drones, which forced both camps to resort to makeshift protection strategies, from metal canopies to wire nets mounted on all categories of vehicles, tactical drones continued being used on an even greater scale. Thus, on April 24, the Russian forces bragged about destroying 3 naval drones that attacked the port of Sevastopol. Just five days later, on April 29, skies over Sevastopol were covered by dense smoke rising from a burning fuel depot belonging to the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Ukraine’s counter-offensive of 2023: Western tanks, powerless against Russian drones

In the summer of 2023, the Ukrainian army launched a long-anticipated counter-offensive, whose objective was to break the Russian frontline and block the land link between Russia and occupied Crimea. For the success of its operation, Kyiv was relying on equipment delivered by the West.

State-of-the-art combat equipment provided by Ukraine’s NATO partners, among which the German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks are worth mentioning, proved its limitations in the face of a meticulous defense mounted by the Russians: anti-tank and anti-personnel minefields; sizable clusters of conventional and response artillery; gunships firing guided missiles outside the range of Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems; and finally, entire swarms of drones frantically and efficiently harassing vehicles and troops alike. Images of burning vehicles are heavily used by Russian propaganda to debunk the “myth” of the technical supremacy of Western-made tanks.

Russian propaganda narratives would reiterate this theme on many other occasions, two of which are worth mentioning due to the impact they had on international public opinion. The first is a video published on the main social media platforms on August 3, 2023, depicting a Leopard 2A6 tank being destroyed by a Lancet “suicide” drone. Then, on September 5, we witnessed the destruction of the first British-made Challenger 2 tank. The vehicle is immobilized by an anti-tank mine explosion and destroyed by a Lancet drone. Considered one of the modern tanks with the best armor protection in its class, the loss of the Challenger produced a shockwave across British space. The event shook the media and civil society in the United Kingdom, raising questions about the combat capability of military equipment of Western origin in the context of the new type of war (“drone wars”) being waged on the front in Ukraine.

Lancet

The success of drones against more expensive and powerful equipment has once again shown how necessary it is to come up with protective solutions. Both sides were also forced to improvise, for instance building barriers made of wire nets or various metal plates welded together in the form of a network. However, these are merely temporary solutions which, although they have helped save a significant number of lives and vehicles, lack any perspective. The extra weight brought by improvised components puts additional pressure on the vehicle's suspension and undercarriage, drastically reducing mobility and wearing out the transmission and engine in time. The Russians sought alternative solutions for protection against drones, bringing out the Volnorez and Triton electronic warfare (jamming) systems at the “ARMY-2023” military expo (August 14-20) held in the suburbs of Moscow. The systems observe the following principle: they transmit radio signals (waves) synchronized to the operating frequency of the drone (the system emits a signal on low-band frequencies starting 900 MHz to a maximum of 3,000 MHz) that distort its communication with its guiding operator and thus cause it to crash. At the end of 2023, Ukraine also announced it had developed and was testing an electronic jamming system designed to counter Russian drones.

A new generation of Ukrainian drones: Bober, Scythe, Ram

On May 28, 2023, Kiev was the target of one of the most massive attacks in this war, as Russia launched around 60 drones. Retaliation followed a couple of days later, when Kyiv launched several “Bober” (“Beaver”) UAVs against Moscow. This unmanned aerial vehicle, first revealed to the public on May 11, 2023, was designed and fully manufactured in Ukraine. It is said to have an operating range of between 600 and 1,000 km, and is armed with a KZ-6 type cumulative charge (1.8 kg of explosive). The visible effects of the attack were apparently quite limited, “Bober” drones being mostly downed or electronically jammed, Russian sources say. On the other hand, the Ukrainian attack dealt (yet another) blow to the image of Russian military capabilities, the said drones flying undetected hundreds of kilometers across the national airspace of the Russian Federation before being shot down on the outskirts of the capital, an objective protected by the most sophisticated network of anti-aircraft defenses on Russia’s territory.

On November 6, 2023, Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian state-owned company that brings together the country's main arms, ammunition and military technology manufacturers, announced a “kamikaze” drone model with a range of 1,000 km had entered mass-production.

The final innovation of 2023 in the spectrum of the “drone wars” was achieved by the private company “Terminal Autonomy” which, on December 16, announced it had delivered to the Ukrainian Armed Forces the first batch of long-range AQ 400 “Scythe” drones, capable of carrying a 32-kg warhead over a distance of 750 kilometers.

AQ 400 Scythe @https://terminalautonomy.com/aq400-scythe/

Early 2024 marked a new premiere for Ukraine’s defense industry. On January 17, traditional and social media published photos and a video recording of a highly maneuverable “kamikaze” drone which, above anything else, was equipped with an innovative propulsion system, atypical for such aircraft. It also featured a reactive engine. The steep manufacturing cost, given the use of the jet engine, will mean its use will be restricted on a smaller scale compared to similar drones equipped with classic engines. Nevertheless, we can suspect the new drone will be used to hit high-stake targets, as its superior speed and maneuverability in comparison to “propeller” drones enable them to reach areas well protected by Russian anti-aircraft artillery.

Another innovative step forward was the announcement made by the Ukrainian authorities on February 7, when they revealed production of a drone similar in purpose and technical performance to the already famous Russian Lancet drone was in its early stages. This unmanned aerial vehicle has been named “Ram II” and has a range of about 40 kilometers. The first video footage published in the first half of April, showing “Ram II” drones carrying out strikes on various targets of particular importance to the Russian forces, suggests that the role played by this drone on the Ukrainian front will increase exponentially in the months ahead. The Ram II drone also has an upgraded version called Ram X, which was already used on April 9 to destroy a “Tunguska” self-propelled anti-aircraft artillery system.

Of all the events that stand out in the “drone wars” in Ukraine in the first quarter of this year, the downing by Russian forces of a Banshee Jet 80 drone of British origin holds particular importance. The first images of the unmanned device were published in the Russian media on February 19, when it was possible to see a number of changes that had been operated to the aerial vehicle, from the vertical stabilizer (the “tail”) to the combat payload (which was not included in the base design).

Finally, another Ukrainian improvisation is the conversion of an ultralight Aeroprakt A-22 aircraft into an unmanned aerial vehicle, used to strike strategic targets deep into enemy territory. One such aircraft was used on April 2 to attack a drone factory located approximately 1,200 kilometers from the Russian Federation's western border with Ukraine, in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, the Republic of Tatarstan.

The ever-expanding drone wars

Last year, one of the most important British security and defense think-tanks, the Royal United Services Institute, estimated that Ukraine loses about ten thousand drones every month due to electronic warfare systems used by the Russian forces. It is a significant number that once again shows the scale at which the “drone wars” unfold. Moreover, Kyiv hopes to double its annual production of drones to two million by the end of 2024. Even with the loss of ten thousand drones per month, without taking into account imports and external purchases, at such a production rate, Ukraine's drone “army” will far exceed its conventional one. In the other camp, the Russians’ production efforts and acquisition of military drones are also keeping pace.

The drone wars thus continue to gain momentum.