Russia's invasion of Ukraine has turned into a war of drones: which drones are involved in hostilities

The Russian-Ukrainian war can already be called a war of drones. There are several main types of drones used by adversaries, reports Meduza.

Photo: IStock

A year ago, American intelligence for the first time noted the transfer of equipment from the inner districts to the western borders of Russia. Many then believed that the concentration of troops was the Kremlin’s response to the first use of the Bayraktar drone by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the war zone in the Donbass: on October 27, 2021, a Turkish-made UAV struck a precision-guided munition at the artillery position of the “DPR”. The Kremlin called the attack a violation of the Minsk agreements; a week later, the transfer of troops began, which ended with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The conflict has become a full-fledged war of drones. But not the same UAVs and the tactics of using them that experts saw a year ago turned out to be effective.

Bayraktar

Bayraktar is an attack operational-tactical medium-altitude drone with missiles on the suspension. It is produced by the Turkish private company Baykar Makina.

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By the end of 2021, Ukraine received from Turkey several dozen Bayraktar, control stations and precision-guided munitions for them. Bayraktar has become the main strike UAV of the Ukrainian army. The reputation of the drone by that time was ambiguous: if in Karabakh in 2020 it proved to be extremely effective and spectacular (the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry regularly published footage of attacks on Armenian troops), then in Syria and especially in Libya, Bayraktar had problems with confronting a developed air defense system (created with Russian participation).

During the invasion of Ukraine, Turkish UAVs basically confirmed that they cannot be used as the main striking force against an army with a developed air defense system: only confirmed photo and video losses of these UAVs in Ukraine amounted to 15 pieces, and there were only a few published videos of effective strikes. President Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke about the fact that Bayraktar proved to be not very effective in the current war.

“Now Bayraktars are used only as surveillance and reconnaissance drones and almost never enter the airspace controlled by Russian air defense systems,” said military expert Vladislav Shurygin.

“Orlan-10”

By the beginning of the war, Russia did not have such an advanced unmanned strike platform as Bayraktar: there were not enough drones themselves, serial motors that allow them to carry a large payload, and, most importantly, precision-guided bombs and small missiles.

Before the war, the basis of the unmanned aerial fleet of the Russian army was the Orlan-10 and Orlan-30 reconnaissance and target designation drones. They were assigned to artillery units subordinate to the command of the armies and directions. They were distinguished primarily by their low cost (they also used foreign-made civilian cameras as an optical-electronic system) and a long flight range, allowing them to conduct long-term reconnaissance. In addition, the UAVs were equipped with additional equipment - from the Krasnopol laser target designation system for high-precision artillery shells to the Leer electronic warfare system, which intercepts signals from mobile phones. But as they say, in these drones there is little that can be found specifically made in Russia: electronics - Western or Chinese, engine - Japanese, communications - German, GPS navigation module - Swiss, flight control sensors - American.

The main threat of Russian Orlan-10 drones to the Ukrainian Armed Forces is that the occupiers have a lot of them.

“As of 2021, more than 1 drones were officially known to be in service with the Russian army,” said journalist, military expert and editor-in-chief of Defense Express Oleg Katkov.

The main problem of the “Orlans” was the tactics of their use: they actually belonged to large artillery units (and in the summer they became, in fact, the basis of the “artillery roller” with which the Russian Armed Forces tried to crush the Ukrainian army in the Donbass), and therefore could not conduct reconnaissance in the interests of the advanced units of the Russian army. In addition, like Bayraktar, the Orlans suffered heavy losses from fire from not the strongest Ukrainian air defense: the stated documented losses of these drones amount to 92 units, and by that time there were several thousand of them produced.

Small Quadcopters

The advanced units at the front urgently need their own drones, which allow them to conduct reconnaissance, give target designation to artillery and tanks, and, if necessary, independently strike at identified targets. The Ukrainian army realized this as early as 2014-2015 during the then fighting in the Donbass. Since then, both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and public organizations have tried to saturate the troops with commercial copter drones. In the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, copters were not officially used at all until February. However, since spring, the Russian army, with the help of “volunteers” and regional authorities (with the tacit approval of the Ministry of Defense), entered the copter race.

As a result, eight months after the start of the invasion, it is no longer possible to imagine a war without small copters: infantry on the battlefield is blind, mortars and artillery cannot hit protected targets (for example, trenches and dugouts) even with a huge consumption of ammunition, armored vehicles look defenseless against anti-tank weapons. And the further, the more often commercial copters are equipped with systems for releasing homemade ammunition - as a rule, grenades of various types with a tail stabilizer printed on a printer. Although this, of course, is not the main use case for copters, which are called “birds” by the troops of both sides.

Kamikaze drones

The main disadvantages of copters are short operating time, sensitivity to weather and a very small payload (it is the latter circumstance that does not allow them to be used as full-fledged shock weapons). Meanwhile, the troops need precisely strike systems that can reduce the time from identifying a target to hitting it.

Reconnaissance drones do not always cope with their tasks precisely because the enemy constantly changes the position of fire weapons and other important equipment: while the operator of the reconnaissance drone transmits information to the positions of artillery or mortars, while they carry out calculations for firing, the targets manage to escape. Mobile targets - artillery, multiple launch rocket systems - must be hit immediately.

Here the RF Armed Forces have an advantage: relatively cheap (compared to the same Bayraktar) television-guided kamikaze drones were developed and put into service before the war. However, judging by the frequency of use, large-scale production of such drones began after the invasion. Now kamikaze drones are actively used against artillery and air defense systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the landing units of the Russian Federation in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine clearly have problems with the presence of such drones.

"Strategic" kamikaze drones

It seems that before the war, the Russian command believed that the best kamikaze drone was a rocket. Huge amounts of money were spent specifically on missile weapons - from small air-launched missiles with television guidance to operational-strategic and cruise missiles. However, stocks of such missiles began to deplete rapidly.

Russia has begun to widely use Iranian-made kamikaze drones in Ukraine recently. This proved to be a very effective new weapon. The peculiarity of the “Geranium”, as the Iranian “Shahed” drones are called in Russia, is a very successful combination of efficiency, technological simplicity and price, which in a war of attrition has become an important factor for any weapon.

The Ukrainian military calls kamikaze drones “mopeds” or “balalaikas.” The reason for this is the characteristic sound that an Iranian drone makes when flying. Vikna.

It is these drones that pose a danger to civilians in Ukraine. The warhead is very dangerous, it can cause great destruction, causing a powerful blast wave.

The task of the kamikaze drone is to fly to the point indicated by the military and explode there. Such a drone is used only for this purpose, which is why the Shahed-136 is so cheap and simple.

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At the same time, it is difficult for Ukrainian air defense to fight these drones: they fly low, which excludes detection at a great distance; unlike missiles, drones do not unmask themselves upon launch, the air defense system needs to constantly monitor the airspace (that is, turn on the radar) and thereby allow the enemy to detect itself. It is believed that before the air defense of Ukraine tried to work from ambushes, including the radar after receiving information about the launch of Russian missiles or the take-off of aircraft.

Commercial drones for journalists

And with the help of drones, a large number of videos about this war are being filmed.

Muratov, longtime editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's last independent media outlets, said Ukraine would never forgive Russia for this war. He stressed that it is the video evidence of the atrocities of the Russian Federation in Ukraine that will never allow Ukrainians to forget all the horror and pain of what is happening.

“Many people want to forgive everything, but you click in the search engine: Mariupol, Irpen or Bucha. And ... you can no longer forgive, - said Muratov. “Every step of this war, every crime and every shot … will now remain forever.”

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