Ukraine is increasingly reliant on cheap aerial drones to hold off intensifying Russian attacks.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, a NATO official said that Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drones were responsible for two-thirds of recent Russian tank losses.
While that may seem like a success for Ukraine, its heavy reliance on drones reflects its lack of alternatives.
Ukraine is experiencing ongoing shortages in artillery rounds and other weapons that are usually used to target armored vehicles.
To make up for this, it has used FPV drones for a range of tasks during the war, including surveillance and attacks on enemy positions.
Some drones are fitted with explosives and are remotely controlled via a video screen by soldiers, who fly them into Russian tanks.
Ukrainian troops recently told The New York Times that Russia’s electronic warfare units, which remotely scramble the signals used to control drones, have had only limited success in countering their use against tanks and armored vehicles.
The role of drones is so important for Ukraine that it’s massively ramping up production of them, with Ukrainian Strategic Industries, Minister Oleksandr Kamyshin, last year saying that it aimed to produce tens of thousands of the devices monthly.
But there are downsides. The drones are no replacement for the artillery shells and other ammunition Ukraine is desperately short of as Republicans in Congress continue to block a $60 billion aid bill.
“We produce a lot of drones, but they are not an alternative to any kind of weapon,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during an interview with Axel Springer media outlets published Tuesday.
“We are proving ourselves with drones, and I think the fact that we have increased production helps us a lot,” Zelenskyy added, “but it is not a substitute for air defense, it is not a substitute for long-range weapons, missiles, long-range artillery.”
FPV drones have a relatively short range of around six miles, while missiles and artillery can strike targets accurately from a much greater distance.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program, told Foreign Policy the drones are accurate only around half the time, and an experienced drone operator would need to use waves of drone attacks to take out a tank.
“You usually don’t kill a tank the first few times,” Lee told the outlet. “It can take 10 or more [FPV drones] to kill a tank.”
