- Both Russia and Ukraine are employing drones in new and destructive ways.
- One video captures a Ukrainian drone attacking a Russian ground drone carrying ammo to a unit.
The drone war in Ukraine is heating up as both sides find innovative ways to use them to protect their troops and target their enemy's across the largely deadlocked battle lines.
It's a sign of just how effective drones have been for Ukraine and Russia and speaks to continued investment in making them more useful and fearsome on the battlefield.
This week, video shared by the Ukrainian Ground Forces showed a rather peculiar interaction between an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) near Avdiivka.
Під Авдіївкою український FPV- дрон знищив наземний безпілотник Російської Федерації, який доставляв боєприпаси.
— Громадське радіо (@HromadskeRadio) December 9, 2023
Про це повідомляють Сухопутних військ Збройних сил України.https://t.co/mp611QDjHQ pic.twitter.com/Sv8M7JLki6
In the footage, a Russian UGV is seen driving on a snowy road. Ukraine said the drone was delivering ammunition to a nearby Russian unit, a tactic that spares troops in a vehicle from going on a dangerous resupply mission. Russian forces have been fighting in Avdiivka for months now, and are attempting a renewed offensive against Ukrainian defenses there.
But before the UGV can get ammo to Russian troops, a Ukrainian exploding drone flies out of nowhere, soaring down and slamming directly into it. The UGV promptly explodes.
Although there have been many other instances of drone-on-drone combat, this one highlights just how reliant Russian and Ukraine have become on unmanned vehicles, in this case using them as both a logistical tool and a piloted weapon.
Another recent video speaks to that development as well. On Friday, footage of a Ukrainian UGV participating in de-mining operations was shared online.
Interesting video of a Ukrainian small UGV platform for demining ops - it stretches out the UZP-77 hose-like, mine-clearing line charge assembly that explodes and detonates mines along its path. Obviously, this was not a live fire test - Ukrainians wanted to see if UZP can be… pic.twitter.com/0WIWuk2GJs
— Samuel Bendett (@sambendett) December 15, 2023
In the video, the drone drives forward in a field, pulling along a mine-clearing line charge that resembles a hose. The Russian-made device detonates the mines nearby and along its path, saving individual sappers from the dangerous and difficult job of clearing an initial mine-free path.
The footage shows that a UGV could potentially be used to pull these line charges and maneuver them into place, giving the drone another potential job for Ukraine.
Both cases — the drone combat in Avdiivka and the mine-clearance operation — are not necessarily all that new but instead indicate continued innovation and sophistication in the use of unmanned vehicles.
They also link with recent advanced and violent use of drones on the battlefield, where nothing and no one is safe from these weapons. Graphic videos shared online have documented some attacks over the past few months were drones flew inside open hatches of tanks or followed Russian soldiers back to bunkers.
As one Ukrainian soldier said in a recent video, "This is the future of warfare: shooting drones at each other rather than bullets or shells."