28 July 2022

Drone Warfare in Ukraine: Understanding the Landscape

Elias Yousif

Introduction

For more than a decade, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) were the lethal purview of the great powers, deployed by only a handful of countries, and typically used outside conventional battlefields to limit the exposure of troops, overcome challenging topographies, or create a low-risk option for involvement in a conflict. However, drone technology and use has proliferated and become a staple of armed conflicts across the globe. From Nagorno-Karabakh, to Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, and beyond UAVs are being employed in conventional and unconventional battlefields by state actors, non-state insurgent groups, terrorist groups and criminal gangs, and individuals.

The war in Ukraine has seen widespread drone usage and as the United States considers expanding the arsenal of UAVs it provides to Kyiv, the strategic and tactical implications of these systems are worth considering.

Background – Expanding Use of Drones in Conflict

While the United States and its peers once commanded a near-exclusive use of armed UAVs, relaxations of export restrictions, the arrival of new producers, and the expansion of the commercial drone market has facilitated a broad proliferation of the technology and capability beyond the hands of large or militarily advanced states. Accordingly, the nature of drone operations has evolved, including their introduction into conventional battlefields and in near-peer conflicts. The most notable recent example was the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Though the conflict was brief, drones proved pivotal, showcasing how unmanned systems can be integrated into more advanced combined arms operations. In fact, Azerbaijan’s large and more advanced arsenal of armed drones has been cited as a cornerstone of its success in the conflict and has become a point of study among the defense community, including in the Pentagon, for how UAVs are changing the nature of modern state-vs-state conflicts. Now, Ukraine is will provide insights on the use of drones and UAVs in modern state-vs-state conflicts.

Drones Supplied to Ukraine

UAVs have been a well-publicized component of the massive international military assistance effort to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. U.S. UAV transfers to Kyiv began with hundreds of Switchblade Tactical unmanned systems. Less of a drone and more of a loitering munition, these easily portable unmanned devices can be launched from on the battlefield and be directed via tablet to dive-bomb into targets. The 300 series variant has a range of 10km and an endurance of 15 minutes, while the larger 600 series can fly for 40km and for more than 40 minutes. Because the systems are themselves the payload, the Switchblade is a single-use “kamikaze” drone.

The United States has also provided a number of Puma drones – a man-portable reconnaissance drone made by the same company as the Switchblade. Although it does not carry or act as a munition, the Puma can be equipped with a variety of imagery and sensory equipment for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes.

More recently, the United States has provided at least 121 never before seen Phoenix Ghost Drones, another loitering munition whose capabilities and exact specifications remain undisclosed. Speaking to reporters in April, a U.S. Air Force official suggested the system had been developed on an accelerated schedule to meet the specific requirements of the Ukrainian theatre, a claim that was later walked backed by the Pentagon. Reports suggest that the Phoenix Ghost is also a kamikaze drone.

While the United States have made hundreds of these systems available to Ukraine, the most publicized of Kyiv’s drone arsenal has been the TB2 Bayraktar. The Turkish-made drone is a medium altitude long endurance UAV, capable of ISR and armed attack. It can fly for up to 27 hours and reach altitudes of 25,000 feet, far longer and further than the U.S.-provided systems. Additionally, the TB2 is not a loitering munition like those provided by the US and can strike targets and return for re-use. The system has gained significant notoriety in Ukraine, due in part to the flood of TB2 strike footage that has made its way on to social median and its growing familiarity in popular culture.

A handful of other countries have also provided Ukraine with unmanned aerial systems (UAS), mostly for non-lethal purposes, including reconnaissance drones from Poland and heavy lift cargo drones from the United Kingdom. But perhaps more consequential has been the wide and robust usage of commercially available civilian drones by Ukraine. Sourced domestically and from abroad, these small, off-the-shelf UAVs have helped sustain an ISR matrix across the country. Some estimates place the arsenal of non-military drones near 6,000, dwarfing the fleet of advanced military drones employed by Ukraine’s armed forces. Moreover, these drones are being employed by a wider array of actors, encompassing both formal security forces, paramilitary groups, and non-combatants.

Tactical and Strategic Implications of UAVs In Ukraine

There is no definitive accounting of the number of kinetic drone strikes conducted by Ukrainian forces, but some publicly available data suggests their scale have been relatively limited compared to the scope of Moscow’s invasion, their deployed forces, and the publicity those strikes have garnered. But the impact of UAVs and loitering munitions in Ukraine may not be fully reflected in the scale of kinetic operations, which fails to capture how UAV usage has enabled and enhanced Ukraine’s conventional military operations.

By many measures, Ukraine is innovating the nature of UAV integrated operations, using a network of unmanned systems, of both commercial and military origin, to enrich and diffuse ISR down to the unit level, facilitating Ukrainian troop movements, kinetic strikes, and military planning. Though the volume of loitering munition and UAV strikes may be more limited, the value of those strikes is likely enhanced by the quality of UAV-enabled intelligence. Reports suggest that Ukraine has used UAVs to pinpoint enemy artillery batteries and armor formations, and even to assist in the well-publicized sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva. Similarly, Ukraine has used unmanned systems to track and disrupt Russian supply lines, air defense systems, and ships.

Surprisingly, Russia initially struggled to mitigate the threat posed by Ukrainian drones, generating new efforts to reconsider the nature of air defense systems in an era of UAV proliferation. While American and Ukrainian officials have begun to raise concerns that more advanced military drones, like U.S. Grey Eagles, are too vulnerable to bolstered Russian air defense systems to provide sufficient utility, it seems that the cheaper and more numerous swarms of UAVs are threading a narrow needle of opportunity in Russian air defense doctrines and capabilities.

In this context, the role of civilian and commercially available drones is notable and is changing the nature of military operations in Ukraine alongside the integration of military drones. Wide availability of small recreational UAVs has created a more diffused, localized, and expansive web of ISR, albeit of a lower holistic and integrated quality than might be expected from a more centralized effort. Still, these developments carry their own risks, especially in the blurred lines created between combatants and non-combatants. Principles of distinction enshrined in international humanitarian law become difficult to apply in the context of widespread drone use – civilians, soldiers, journalists, and other stakeholders can be using nearly identical systems in some cases, and technical specifications that have facilitated battlefield distinctions in the past are simply not applicable in the context of commercial UAVs. Accordingly, their status under international humanitarian law remains uncertain, creating new risks for non-combatants.

Beyond the tactical, footage and information gathered from Ukraine’s unmanned systems have come to shape the wider narrative of the conflict, casting to smartphones, televisions, and other platforms images and footage directly from the battlefield. Such efforts have ranged from propaganda videos that feature drone or artillery strikes to solemn documentation of possible violations of international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The TB2 Bayraktar has even been commemorated in a Ukrainian pop song. Taken together, unmanned systems are providing the global community an unprecedented window into the war, though certainly with biases and manipulations that might be expected from any media that comes from a wartime context.

Conclusion

The conflict in Ukraine continues to evolve. Russia’s early vulnerability to armed UAS and loitering munitions have prompted a substantial beefing up of their air defense systems. While the battle for Kyiv saw heavy and effective drone and loitering munition use, Moscow’s effort to expand its ability to defend the airspace around their forces has curtailed Kyiv’s air operations, including of unmanned systems. Still, commanders on the ground continue to insist on the utility of drones and other UAS. Still, the first four months of this war offer some insights into the evolution of UAS and twenty-first century warfare.

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