Explosives-laden drones now are the among the most important weapons on both sides of Russia’s 22-month wider war on Ukraine.
They plink assault columns and supply convoys, harry air-defense and artillery batteries and range scores or even hundreds of miles behind the front line to strike air bases.
What they didn’t usually do, until recently, was provide direct fire-support to infantry squads in close attacks on enemy positions. For that, the infantry still needed mortars, shoulder-fired rockets, tanks and fighting vehicles armed with fast-firing autocannons.
That has begun to change. And in an exception to the usual rule, it’s the Russians who are doing a lot of the innovating.
During a recent infantry assault on a Ukrainian trench complex on the border between southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts, a Russian team launched eight explosive first-person-view drones at a Ukrainian squad—ultimately killing seven of the defenders and forcing the six survivors to retreat.
No Russians died in the attack, which launched last week along the Vremevsky Ledge between Staromaiors’ke and Pryyutne. The settlements are adjacent to the Mokri Yaly River Valley, where the Ukrainian marine corps made significant advances this summer.
The Ukrainian DeepState project analyzed videos of the skirmish, and the independent Conflict Intelligence Team summarized the analysis. “Four Russian assault troops were observed using FPV drones to support an attack,” CIT noted.
“The first video shows Russian soldiers successfully launching kamikaze drone attacks on a Ukrainian trench, killing a machine-gunner and three other soldiers,” CIT added.
“Subsequently, they assault the second trench while continuing to launch improvised air strikes.” With more drones barreling in, the Ukrainian survivors fled. “Russian forces were able to capture these positions without incurring losses.”
Russian propagandists have seized on recent skirmishes in southern Ukraine to declare Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which kicked off in early June, “completely stopped.”
That’s not true. But it is true the Ukrainians have a drone problem. “The effective use of drones during fortification assaults, including by the Russian side, raises questions of the further development of anti-drone warfare,” CIT explained.
While the Ukrainians are deploying more and more systems for grounding, deflecting or shooting down Russian drones—powerful radio-jammers, vehicle cage armor and Gepard mobile guns—most of the defenses work at depth, miles behind the front line.
They’re not for the infantry at the bleeding edge of the fighting.
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