Russian Troops Learn To Dodge FPV Drones—And Beg For Shotguns

The Russian military’s anti-drone radio jammers don’t work very well. Its air-defense systems are spread thin defending against Ukrainian drones targeting bases, factories and oil refineries hundreds of miles behind the front line.

So what’s a Russian infantryman to do to protect himself from the roughly 100,000 explosive first-person-view drones Ukrainian operators fling at Russian positions every month?

A shotgun firing buckshot is a decent defensive weapon. After all, a two-pound FPV drone is around the size and speed of a bird. A fast shooter could hunt an FPV drone like a duck.

The Russian armed forces issue a few shotguns for drone-defense duty—but not nearly enough to protect the whole 400,000-strong force in Ukraine. So at least one soldier has asked civilians to buy a shotgun for him—and mail it to the front line.

“Please help us with pump-action shotguns,” the shell-shocked Russian soldier said in a video message to his supporters back home. “Any shit will do.”

That the soldier has to beg for his friends to ship him a shotgun underscores the Kremlin’s struggle to acquire large numbers of shotguns through military channels and equip enough front-line units to provide a reliable defense against drones.

It seems that, as a last resort, at least one Russian unit is training its troopers to run in circles in an effort to dodge incoming FPV drones.

A video Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov acquired and posted online depicts the training—in part from the point of view of a drone. The “great-grandsons” of World War II soldiers “are mastering the course of dodging Ukrainian FPVs,” Beskrestnov joked.

The problem for the Russians is that we’ve seen a lot of videos from Ukrainian operators depicting Russian troops trying, and failing, to leap out of the way of a drone in the instant before it explodes.

Dodging just doesn’t work when a drone typically hauls at least a pound of explosives. “Once an FPV explodes in near proximity, it can still injure and maim even if the initial drone strike misses,” explained Samuel Bendett, a drone expert with the Virginia-based think tank CNA.

“They’re simply burning us,” the shotgun-begging soldier said of the Ukrainian drones. Just one exploding drone “tears you apart.”