The “UAV War” in Ukraine has changed a lot: What is most feared at the front now?

Unmanned aerial vehicles play a leading role in the fight against Russian invaders in Ukraine, especially in the southern direction of the front. The Economist published material about this on Sunday, October 29.

Drones are being used as a means of reducing Russia’s firepower superiority. However, the use of drones also carries significant risks, as pilots can be easily detected and attacked by the enemy.

Unmanned aerial vehicles open fire and hit the enemy from the air. They have the ability to deliver explosives that can destroy expensive enemy weapons and equipment. Drone operators have the advantage of being able to attack from multiple angles and target the most vulnerable targets.

Ukrainians were the first to think of using FPV drones that are controlled by pilots and can maneuver in real time. The use of such kamikaze helicopters now allows the Ukrainian army to attack with great accuracy over long distances. Some drones have already managed to disable Russian military equipment at a significant distance from the front line.

According to “Hammer”, the commander of the 47th Ukrainian brigade operating in the Zaporozhye direction of the front, the Russians are learning from their own mistakes and the mistakes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Last summer, some units began equipping their most valuable weapons, such as tanks and artillery, with cases of jamming systems that create high-energy fields around an object so that communications signals around the object, including images from UAVs, stop working. It is almost impossible to attack such a position or equipment with a drone without video communication. Ukrainian units generally do not have such technology.

“FPV-type drones have completely changed the combat tactics of armored infantry, and we need to adapt better. Previously, only brigades thought about electronic warfare. Now company-level units need equipment that can detect drones and defend against them,” said Yuri. Momot is the deputy general manager of Piranha-Tech”, a company that develops electronic warfare systems in Ukraine.

The 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier, who bears the call sign “Major”, said a fighter has almost no chance of survival if an enemy pilot spots him and sends a kamikaze drone. A Russian UAV can fly behind your positions, disguise itself as a friendly vehicle, and then crash and explode. The cameras of such drones are not very good, but their speed reaches 150-160 km/h, so overtaking is impossible. “Major” shared that he survived four UAV attacks, but his two comrades failed to escape.

“If you have weak protection, then you are most likely dead. God, not physics, decides whether you survive or not,” the soldier said.

The Ukrainian military understands that the future belongs to unmanned aerial vehicles and that better adaptation to this new form of warfare is necessary. They understand the importance of UAVs in modernizing combat strategies and introducing new methods of combating them. The Ukrainian army announced that more effective technical tools should be developed against unmanned aerial vehicles.

Let us recall that in the second half of October, the Spokesperson of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuri Ignat, announced that the Russians were making unmanned aerial vehicles of an unknown type with AliExpress engines. According to the Air Force representative, this is not the first time the Russian Armed Forces “make” unmanned aerial vehicles from sticks. But he noted that attack drones carry several kilos of explosives and are still dangerous.

In early October, it was learned that Russia was planning to increase the production of Shahed type kamikaze unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the Chairman of the Supreme Council Yuri Ignat, it is unlikely that the Russian Federation will independently produce attack aircraft without the help of Iran.