A Canadian fighting for Ukraine took down a Russian Lancet drone with a fixed-wing drone in a caught-on-camera kill. He says he believes he is the first foreign volunteer to do so.
The drone operator, who goes by the call sign “Butcher” and asked for anonymity for security reasons, said that the successful mission came after months of training on a variety of drone models.
Butcher told Business Insider that he was “eager” to get the kill since he was new to piloting drones. When he got it, he posted a video confirming the Russian target was a Lancet, a kind of one-way attack drone.
In the combat footage, his drone can be seen approaching the uncrewed aerial system from behind before the feed cuts. It didn’t make a kinetic kill, meaning it didn’t fly into the Lancet. Instead, it detonated an explosive nearby, scoring a proximity intercept.
“I got my first confirmed kill as a pilot today,” Butcher posted on March 9. “And this one saved lives, given it was a Lancet.” Lancets are technically loitering munitions, meaning they lurk above targets before flying into them and detonating.
While some loitering munitions like the Iranian-made Shahed-136 are used against cities and critical infrastructure, the Lancets are regularly used tactically against front-like targets.
The range, weight, and speed of the Lancet depend on its variant. They have been huge pain points for vehicle crews.
The Canadian drone pilot told BI that he was using a monitor instead of a headset, which reduces fatigue for pilots operating drones all day.
Monitors also make it easier to determine three-dimensional trajectories and positioning in varying altitudes, as drones can shift, turn, and dive quickly.
“There are times when [drone flying] becomes pretty much the same as dogfighting,” he said, referring to close-range air-to-air combat between two aircraft, traditionally crewed.
Flying the drone, he explained, is just like using a video game controller, which other Ukrainian pilots have noted as well. Operators previously told BI that gamers tend to make pretty good pilots. But this war is very different from a game, as battlefield decisions come with very real life-and-death consequences.
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Butcher, originally a chef at home in Canada, traveled to Ukraine in early 2023 and joined up with an organization cooking for troops on the front lines. Ukrainian culture was a big aspect of his upbringing, but he had lost the language and grew away from the community as he got older.
But in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and began seizing territories in the Donbas region, “I started paying more attention to what was happening,” Butcher said. He was propelled to action after the 2022 full-scale invasion.
In June 2023, he began working to provide aid with a non-governmental organization after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam east of Kherson. He remained involved in humanitarian and military aid for months, also helping translate.
He first began learning about combat drones by volunteering with the Wild Hornets, a nonprofit organization that is focused on providing uncrewed systems for Ukraine’s armed forces. He honed other combat skills before enlisting in basic training last fall.
He’s now focused on air defenses, often targeting drones used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations, and is deployed in the Donetsk area.
Ukraine has been increasingly using drones to intercept and take out Russia’s attack drones and loitering munitions, opting to use them as cheaper options over air defense missiles. They’ve also targeted Russian intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms that provide information on Ukrainian activities.
Working with drones has come with a learning curve, one that is far from static. After Butcher decided to start training on drones, he began with different sizes and brands of first-person view drone models. All of these elements of drone warfare, he said, are new and constantly changing. Indeed, it has been a headache for operators to keep up.
“What’s happening here is there’s such an aggressive and fast evolution of things,” Butcher said. “You could develop the technology or a tactic or system and implement it,” but once Russia has adapted, it becomes “a very fast cat and mouse game,” he added.
Ukrainian drone companies have been at the forefront of developing new software and hardware technologies to give operators an edge in battle. They have also been at work on ways to counter — or completely avoid — challenging adaptations like extensive electronic warfare and signal jamming.
Operators previously told BI that there is a “hidden electronic warfare battle” raging in Ukraine, demanding more from drone units. “This is an ongoing challenge,” one special unit said.
