Drones Are Giving Ukraine a Wartime Edge
A $2,000 vehicle made in China destroys a Russian tank worth millions. They call it ‘delivering pizza.’
Discussion about the war in Ukraine has focused recently on whether the West will supply Kyiv with tanks and jets. But consider the humble drone. Even as Russia has used Iranian-made drones to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Ukraine has repurposed cheap commercial drones for use on the battlefield. Jury-rigged commercial drones typically carry small payloads over short distances, but they’re cheap and can take out heavy enemy equipment. Ukrainian fighters call it “delivering pizza.” In September in the northern region of Kharkiv, Stanislav Zorin, a 36-year-old drone operator for Ukraine’s 80th Airborne Assault Brigade, used a Chinese-made DJI Mavic 3 drone that costs a little more than $2,000 to destroy a Russian tank worth millions. Mr. Zorin describes it as “my ideal sortie.”
Ukraine also has used drones to improve the accuracy of low-precision artillery. “When the first shot goes in, you say, ‘Well, it’s 10 meters left, it’s 10 meters right,’ until you make it in. It makes a huge difference,” says Timur Khromaev, 47, company commander of the Territorial Defense’s 112 Brigade, who spent the summer flying drones over Russian positions in the southern region of Kherson. Russia has had vastly more artillery and missile systems than Ukraine. “Every shot counts,” Mr. Khromaev says. “Drones are fundamentally a platform that lets you do one of two things,” says Fred Kagan, director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project. “It lets you look at stuff, and it lets you shoot stuff.”
The West has helped Ukraine with intelligence, but Kyiv has also relied on drones to peer into Russian-occupied territory. Drones “let poor countries do stuff that otherwise only rich countries used to be able to do,” Mr. Kagan says. “The Ukrainians have used drones to offset their own gaps in capability at a much lower price tag than they would have had to pay if they were going to do it in the more conventional military way.” Drones can also be used in psychological warfare. Samuel Bendett, a member of the Russia Studies Program at the nonprofit Center for Naval Analyses, says a pro-Kremlin account on Telegram recently featured a post by a Russian soldier who described how Ukrainians had used commercial drones to surveil his unit and attack its men when they tried to move between shelters.
“Movement is life,” the post said. “Especially in war. As soon as you are deprived of movement, you experience the difficulties with transportation and the evacuation of the wounded. . . . The fighter then gets the idea that he was driven into a trap and the brain offers options on how to escape. Morale then drops by an order of magnitude—this leads to soldiers abandoning their positions.” This is dangerous work for the Ukrainians. The short flying range of commercial drones means operators “have to be on the edge of the frontline to do our work,” and “we can be reached by any means of artillery,” says Ihor Lutsenko, 44, a former member of Ukraine’s Parliament who has been flying modified commercial drones in eastern Ukraine. “This is the most dangerous job after being in the infantry, but compared to the infantry, you’re a priority goal for the enemy.” Fatalities and injuries are common. Russians often begin firing at operators within minutes after a drone takes flight. Sometimes “you can hear when it’s out, then you can expect something [is] going to fall on you, you can hide,” Mr. Zorin says. But sometimes “it just comes in, and you’re just standing there. . . . It’s like an immediate explosion.”
There’s a high burn rate for Ukraine’s drones, which are at particular risk of jammers that can commandeer or down them. Civil society is helping replenish the supply. “Drones have been probably the No. 1 target for volunteer fundraising activities throughout this war,” says Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister. These efforts are nimble because they’re decentralized and don’t rely on military bureaucracy. Volunteer groups communicate with soldiers about their needs, then crowdfund the purchase and figure out a way to deliver it fast to the front. Chinese-made DJI drones are prevalent, with the Mavic 3 model considered the workhorse of the Ukrainian front. DJI didn’t respond to my queries, but in a statement in November the company said “we stand alone as the only drone company to clearly denounce and actively discourage use of our products in combat, including suspending all business operations in Russia and Ukraine to try to keep our drones out of the conflict.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/drones-...ation-5c0bab55