This is one of the strengths of the Ukrainian army: since the start of the Russian invasion, it has used drones to guide commando operations and artillery strikes. The Ukrainians do not have control of the sky, but they use all possible and imaginable drones to reach the Russian armored vehicles.
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Yaroslav Honchar is one of those men who participated in the failure of the first Russian advance. This lieutenant-colonel works for the Aerorovidka unit, which collects air intelligence and manages the war within the war: that of drones against armored columns.
#Ukraine: What is claimed to be a Ukrainian drone dropping munitions on to a Russian vehicle, destroying it.
via @CRNICASMILITAR1 pic.twitter.com/SrXn213WTc
— Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 26, 2022
Operations often take place at night: with thermal cameras, drones locate tanks or armored vehicles. They are often hidden near houses, and from the air strikes are more accurate. “We find them, and we kill themhe says. When you use a drone, you see what you’re doing, you kill the target precisely, not like when you shoot artillery. Because with artillery you don’t really know where the bomb is falling.”
For this war in the sky, the Ukrainians use the large Turkish military drones Bayraktar TB2. But not only: a few kilometers from Irpin, in the suburbs of kyiv, we saw a commando leave with a small civilian drone. Pavlo Bondarenko, podcast producer, uses his connections to import drones that he buys commercially and supplies to the special forces.
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“When I have a request coming in for a drone, I send a post on Facebook or another social network, he explains. And I ask if someone can give me one for free. Otherwise, we ask who wants to participate to raise 3,000 euros to buy one: everyone then gives from their own pocket. For every drone, there are about twenty or thirty people who donate.”
Civilian drones are also used for operations: they are then trained to become a commando operator in one week. “We explain to them how it works, what to do and what not to do, explains Yaroslav Honchar. First to stay safe. Then to be able to capture information with the drone.”
This army of drones illustrates the technological progress of the Ukrainian army since the Donbass war and the surprising complementarity it has established today with civilians.