- Ukrainian media has shared footage purporting to demonstrate the use of a "cardboard" drone.
- Ukraine says it used the lightweight, cheap drones to do serious damage to five Russian planes.
Ukrainian soldiers are testing the capacities of lightweight "cardboard" drones, according to a video shared on Thursday.
Interest in the Corvo PPDS drones, which are supplied to Ukraine from Australia, has spiked since reports that they were used in a strike on Kursk airfield in Russia, damaging costly Russian warplanes.
Now, the footage shared by Operativno ZSU — an outlet that regularly shares news of the Ukrainian armed forces — shows the kind of damage that a mid-air explosion of the drones might do to a target.
Though the Corvo PPDS was designed for reconnaissance and small deliveries and comes with no explosives, Ukraine's ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko has said they have also been used in a lethal capacity — as the footage would appear to demonstrate.
In the footage of the test, a large area is marked out in a field, with a wooden framework forming a target at the center. It's marked with a Z, a common symbol of the Russian armed forces.
A large explosion is then seen above the target, and rains shrapnel down on the area below. The drone itself was blurred out in the footage.
Later, the video shows areas where the shrapnel had fully penetrated planks of wood, enough, the account claimed, to do significant damage to an aircraft.
—Оперативний ЗСУ (@operativno_ZSU) August 31, 2023
Ukraine's Security Service, the SBU, hasn't gone so far as to name the type of drone used in the strike on Kursk airfield, but told the Kyiv Post that five military aircraft were damaged in the strike.
But Ukraine's ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko appeared to confirm their use, which was first floated by a pro-Russian milblogger and has now been repeated by Operativno ZSU.
The advantage of the Corvo PPDS drone — which have been variously described by their manufacturer SYPAQ as being made of cardboard and of light foamboard — is in its cheapness, light weight, and disposability.
The drones arrive in a flat pack, and can be quickly assembled in the field with the addition of the motor and the avionics module, per SYPAQ's specifications. With a wingspan of six and a half feet and a payload of 6.6 pounds, their lighter material makes them less visible to radar.
Ukraine has received a reported 100 of them per month, worth around $3,500 each, from Australia since March.