Military drones in Ukraine

The main articles are:

• Combat robots and drones
• Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU)

2023

Used 1,300 drones for strikes on the territory of Russia, of which 54 reached the target

As of October 1, 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine used about 1,300 drones to strike at Russian territories. Of these, at least 672 units were shot down by air defense calculations, 534 were suppressed by the electronic warfare. 54 - somehow reached the goal (confident arrivals or hits without countering air defense were counted by Rybar).

The Republic of Crimea and the Belgorod Region underwent the largest number of UAV raids - more than 73% of all drones fell on these regions. Also, Kursk, Bryansk and Moscow regions were hit more often than others. The new territories of Russia for the most part suffered from artillery due to their proximity to the front.

The most popular drones for raids from the Armed Forces of Ukraine were the Chinese PRO Mugin-5. This "guest," filled with explosives, was regularly used for attacks on the Crimea. Low cost and easy availability made it possible to massively purchase them from Chinese marketplaces before the ban on the PRC authorities was introduced.

Also, PD-1 UAVs and Ukrainian-made PD-2 were used en masse to strike the Russian territories of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The peak of their activity was noted in the summer and autumn of 2022, after which their number declined either with problems in production, or with the transition to other more effective means.

For attacks on remote Russian regions, such as Moscow, Kaluga, Voronezh, Smolensk, Ukrainian troops actively involved UJ-22 Airborne. Due to their high autonomy and large tank, they are able to travel long distances.

But as practice has shown, their effectiveness turned out to be almost zero. And they began to be replaced by drones of the "duck" structure under the code name "Beaver." The first official confirmation was during the raid on Moscow, and later they were seen in the Crimea.

But one of the most effective (if we consider according to the results of the arrivals) was and remains the Tu-141 Strizh jet drone. They were not used as much as other types of drones, but it was they who attacked the airfields in Engels and Diaghilevo. The ability to overcome long distances at a low altitude with a relief envelope is a serious problem for air defense units.

At least eight main sites were used to launch drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, depending on the capabilities of the drones themselves. For example, for attacks in the south of Russia, the jump sites are Belgorod-Dniester, Shkolny, Kherson, Dolgintsevo, Shiroky.

For raids on the Krasnodar Territory, the Rostov Region and more remote regions, improvised points in Krasnoarmeysk and Kharkov were periodically involved. And the biggest difficulty in finding them is that the APU for the most part uses small UAVs that are unpretentious to conditions, that is, it can be a field.

The nature of the use of Ukrainian UAVs changed throughout the special operation with the course of the conflict and the increase in their production. If at first these were isolated raids, which were a surprise for the Russian air defense, then subsequently the attacks became more massive and diverse.

Active support for the West contributed to the development of the strategy. For example, for attacks on Crimea, NATO intelligence transmitted data on the location of air defense systems to Ukraine every day to create an approximate route to bypass them, which was used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In most cases, everything boiled down to daily probing of the defense with the intention of disarming the ammunition of anti-aircraft missile systems and the subsequent massive drone strike to overload the air defense system.

And at first, such tactics could be effective. More expensive anti-aircraft missiles were spent on cheap artisanal drones, and with such expenses the situation would be deplorable. But subsequently, the RF Armed Forces also began to use anti-aircraft guns and rifle units, which have proven their effectiveness in countering raids.

By the fall of 2023, the tactics of using UAVs are somewhat different. The calculation goes to combining strikes. Drones search and calculate air defense areas, they force them to spend ammunition on themselves, and then there is a point attack by missiles on air defense systems/PU/ships. Several times this happened in Crimea and Sevastopol.

Start of construction of Bayraktar UAV production plant

In Ukraine, they began to build a Bayraktar UAV production plant, the Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries said in July 2023.

Earlier, the general director of the Turkish company Baykar Makina said that they expect to start production there in 2025.

Almost all drones "Bayraktar TB2" APU destroyed by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

The Business Insider news agency in May 2023 published an article with reference to the expert of the American Center for Naval Analysis Samuel Bendett about the situation with the Bayraktar TB2 attack drones.

According to the resource, Ukrainian formations lost almost all Turkish-made UAVs during the conflict, and the remaining ones are used purely for intelligence.

For 15 months of the conflict, Bayraktars went from the stage of "miracle weapons" (active advertising during campaigns in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh affected) to simply UAVs used to guide artillery and aviation.

The last batch of 19 Turkish drones was delivered back in 2022. In the first months of 2023, the number of flights of UAV data really increased over Ukraine. "Bayraktars" were noted in the north of Ukraine, and at Bakhmut, and over the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions, and even over Lviv.

However, now they are practically not: lonely UAVs occasionally take off in the Odessa and Kirovograd regions, acting at a great distance from the LBS. Air defense calculations of the RF Armed Forces have adapted to the determination of radiation from the Bayraktar onboard systems and regularly work on them as soon as they enter the range of the Russian air defense systems.

As of May 2023, there are only a few of them left - from five to ten maximum. Ukrainian units take care of them, since new supplies are not yet expected.

Where and what military drones are produced in Ukraine. Card

The Armed Forces of Ukraine by the end of 2022 had more than 2,000 different drones. Some of them were supplied or purchased by Western countries and are already used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, such as Warmate, Mugin-5, Bayraktar TB2, Poseidon, and so on. But most of Ukraine's unmanned fleet for March 2023 is made up of UAVs of their own production or modernization. At the industrial base of Ukrainian military-industrial companies and enterprises, with significant support from Western countries, the assembly, modernization and repair of UAVs were established.

The main part of UAVs, their design and design development is carried out on the basis of several private companies and industrial enterprises in Kyiv. It is in the capital and its environs that the headquarters of various firms that have received targeted funding for the development of this area are concentrated.

Also, serial production of drones is established at the facilities of large factories, such as Hartron and Kommunar in Kharkov or the Yuzhnoye and Sphere design bureau in Dnepropetrovsk. Moreover, the "Sphere" is equipped with underground complexes of UAV assembly.

The development of inertial navigation systems and software is carried out by specialists in the field of physical modeling of aircraft flight modes at the Aerospace University in Kharkov with the support of engineers from the West.

Components for the manufacture and modernization of drones are purchased by commercial companies, in some cases acting through dummies, in, Germany,, China,,, and To Canada USA. France Japan India

In the spring of 2023, to expand the production base, the leadership of Ukraine is working on the option of organizing serial production and retrofitting of UAVs in Poland and in other countries of Eastern Europe, the Rybar channel wrote.

The defense industry of Ukraine, thanks to huge assistance from European countries and the United States, managed to develop this sphere and establish the assembly of kamikaze drones.

Even before the start of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, UAVs of their own production were used in clashes in the Donbass, but there was never any mass use of them as long-range drums. It was the fact that the Ukrainian side was able to contain the offensive of the Russian army that convinced Western states to assist in the development of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.

The range of drones produced is quite diverse, ranging from small-sized copters with an installed grenade dropping system and ending with drones converted from light-engine aircraft.

For example, Aerodron has set up the assembly of D-80 Discovery and D-300 Enterprise models. These UAVs are tricycle landing gear high planes on a three-bladed nose propeller internal combustion engine.

There is also a multi-purpose UJ-22 drone, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine use both for reconnaissance and for striking at Russian territory. And the variability of drones converted to shock and produced in large numbers of UAVs is quite wide. About 500 units UJ-22 collected alone.

Some types of UAVs are still being finalized and not put into mass production, such as the Dovbush T10, and some can no longer be recreated due to the lack of a scientific and technical base and specialists. These include the Tu-141/143 Strizh/Reis of Soviet production.

Almost all aircraft are equipped with a satellite system receiver GPS and are capable of flying along a given route. And the warhead attached to them depends on the technical characteristics of the drones.

Some restrictions by SpaceX on the use of Starlink satellite communication systems on UAVs were partially offset by the use of alternative means: in Germany, American military personnel actively purchased Netgear Nighthawk M1 mini-routers from private companies, which also provide a stable connection.

Since the end of autumn 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to save up the drones produced, limiting their use on Russian facilities. It was then that the mass use of Chinese commercial UAVs "Mugin-5" began, which were brought in huge numbers from China through Poland.

FPV drones have been added to the already produced UAVs, which have already begun to be massively used at the Maryinsky site: fighters of the Russian Armed Forces say that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will use them in an "unmanned swarm," creating a lot of trouble for infantry units.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine integrate new technologies into the realities of hostilities, using them both in defense and offensive. At first there were Maviki with a grenade drop system, then Chinese Mugins and converted Soviet Swifts appeared, and now drones with first-person control.

Dozens of Soviet-made Tu-141 Strizh and Tu-143 Reis jet drones

Ukrainian units periodically launch Soviet-made jet drones to assess the state of air defense in Russia. As a rule, a raid consists of one or two UAVs, but no more.

Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine assess the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in different parts of the country: on March 26, 2023, the blow occurred in the Tula region, in early March - in the Crimea, before that - in the Krasnodar Territory.

In some cases, the Swifts achieve their goals, as was the case in Tuapse, where the hit was at the oil depot, and in some they fall due to various reasons - external obstacles or guidance errors.

Mass production of the Tu-141 Strizh and Tu-143 Reis jet drones was stopped with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, the assembly of these UAVs was carried out on the basis of the Kharkov Aviation Plant.

In the period from 1978 to 1989, 152 Strizhey units were produced at the enterprise in Kharkov, a significant part of which was in Ukraine. Judging by the data of open sources, since the beginning of hostilities in February 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have used 29 Tu-141 reactive UAVs, one of which even flew to Croatian Zagreb. Several more units of Ukrainian formations were used in 2014 in the Donbass.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are very sensitive to their use, unlike the same Chinese Mugin-5. This suggests that the number of Tu-141 is limited, and they are protected for a special case, wrote the Rybar channel. According to the highest estimates, the APU has a total of up to 100 UAV buildings of this type.

The situation with "Flights" is more complicated: a total of 950 of them were produced, which then spread across the countries of the former USSR, the eastern Europe and Middle East. It is problematic to estimate even the approximate number of Tu-143 in Ukrainian formations, but they are hardly less than several dozen.

The production technology is in the past: there are no specialists or industrial capacities that have long been redone for other tasks. And there are practically no parts and spare parts left at KhAZ.

The Older Edda channel writes that up to 50 such UAVs in March 2023 are located at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. It is much faster and more convenient to modernize and improve the Swifts at the facility with modern equipment than to carry everything to Ukraine.

Unlike other drones, Soviet jet UAVs are more complex targets for air defense due to the ability to fly at extremely low altitudes and maneuver around the terrain.

President of Ukraine Zelensky proposes to strike with drones on the territory of the Rostov region of the Russian Federation

The United States spied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, [1] CNN reported in April 2023, citing leaked secret Pentagon documents . The media noted that the Pentagon is investigating the leak of materials on the social network, which describes the state of the Ukrainian troops and the plans of the United States and NATO to strengthen them.

Some of the documents, which US officials say are genuine, reveal the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies including South Korea, Israel and Ukraine.

The US intelligence report says that Zelensky at the end of February 2023 "proposed to strike at the locations of Russian troops in the Rostov region" using unmanned aerial vehicles, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of achieving such goals.

According to CNN, the obtained intelligence may explain the public statements of the United States about the reluctance to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons due to fears that Kyiv is using them to strike objects inside the territory of Russia.

Appearance of the first UAV strike companies

At the beginning of 2023, UAV strike companies appeared in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Search engine ZVI" published a list of 12 main training centers, where the training of drone operators for the advanced is organized.

1. The training center of UAV operators "Crook," is located in Kyiv.

2. Center "Dronarium," there are centers in Lviv and Kyiv. There are plans to open a center in Kharkov and other cities.

3. Boriviter Military School. The main training center is located in Kyiv. There are mobile training groups.

4. SpecAero School, operates individually. School instructors are developers of their own operational-tactical reconnaissance complex "Finder."

5. Aero combat drone academy (or KIGDA).

6. Open Sky Training Center, located in Kyiv, training flights take place outside the city. There is a mobile study group.

7. Digital Sky Pilot School, located in western Ukraine.

8. The school of UAV operators works in the interests of the National Guard of Ukraine.

9. UA Drone School, courses are held in Kyiv and near Brovary.

10. Training and retraining center for UAV operators Sky Space UA, training takes place in the suburbs of Kyiv within 70 km. There are mobile training groups.

11. Free Air School, located in Odessa.

12. Victory Drones School, conducts online training, there is a flight practice.

2022

Britain to supply Ukraine with military drones firing missiles at 60km

On September 26, 2022, it became known that the UK would supply Ukraine with new unmanned quadcopters carrying missiles with a range of 60 km and capable of launching them right in flight. Read more here.

The US supplied Ukraine with Switchblade 600 kamikaze drones that can carry a warhead similar to an anti-tank missile

On September 20, 2022, it became known that the Pentagon signed a contract with AeroVironment for the supply of Switchblade 600 kamikaze drones to Ukraine in the amount of $2.2 million amid the ongoing confrontation with Russia. Read more here.

Taiwan delivered 800 "flying mortars" to Ukraine

At the end of August 2022, it became known that Taiwan had delivered 800 "flying mortars" to Ukraine. We are talking about unmanned aerial vehicles of vertical take-off and landing Revolver 860. Read more here.

US delivered Boeing drones to Ukraine

As part of the security assistance program USA To Ukraine announced on August 19, 2022 unmanned aerial vehicles , ScanEagle will be provided for the first time, which can be used to detect and target Russian troops and allied forces. More. here

UK and Norway hand over military drones weighing 18 grams to Ukraine

Ministry of Defence Norway together Great Britain with will supply To Ukraine microdrones worth up to 90 million Norwegian crowns ($9.26 million). The department announced this at the end of August 2022. More. here

2021: Ukrainian armed forces use Turkish Bayraktar combat drones in Donbass for the first time

At the end of October 2021, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) first used Turkish Bayraktar combat drones in Donbass. The video, which captures the use of the drone, was published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Read more here.

See also

• Military drones in Russia