Summary

  • Recent spike in drone ‘dogfights’ over Ukraine changes war dynamics.
  • Drones have become central due to artillery and missile shortages.
  • Ukrainian success in intercepting Russian surveillance drones could be game-changing.

Videos shared on social media over the past three days show Ukraine is now intercepting high-flying Russian drones with its own drones. It has been said that the age of dogfights has been over for decades. However, it seems no one ever stopped to think about unmanned platforms – aka drones. In recent days, there has been a massive development in drone ‘dogfights’ over the battlefields of Ukraine. This is a major development that could greatly impact the war going forward. The drone war is taking on an ever more central role.

Artillery shortages, air-defense missile shortages, and more are driving up the importance of drones on both sides. While missile-carrying drones like the Baykartar TB2 drone were celebrated in the first days of the war, they were obsolete within weeks. The story of the ‘War of the Drones’ in Ukraine continues to evolve and take countless twists and turns.

High-altitude drone on drone interception

A video emerged online just a few days ago of a high-flying Russian drone being intercepted by another high-flying Ukrainian drone. While there have been videos since early in the war of drones attacking other drones mid-flight (often flying an FPV quad-copter drone into another FPV quad-copter drone), this interception is the first of its kind.

The video showed a Russian ZALA long-range recon drone being taken out by another Ukrainian drone. The video appears to be taken from a fixed-wing interceptor Ukrainian drone flying up and taking the ZALA out. The interception took place at 2,100 meters or 6,900 feet. Russia’s main long-range drones include ZALAs, SuperCams, and Orlans.

Mobile military base, soldier engineer transmits aerial pictures and data from drone to artillery

Photo: Parilov l Shutterstock

Andrew Peterua is a much-followed open-source intelligence analyst who leads a group of volunteers in geolocating and identifying Russian and Ukrainian losses on the battlefield. The volunteers have contacts with Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline and trawl through hundreds of combat videos daily. In a YouTube stream providing an update on the battlefield, he spoke about drone interception as being a potential watershed moment.

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Why it could be transformative

There are simply not enough air defense missiles to counter all the drones being mass-produced by Russia (and vice versa). Not only that, but drones are much cheaper than missiles—meaning shooting them down is just an economic dead end. However, high-altitude surveillance drones are providing critical targeting data for Russian airstrikes, artillery strikes, and missile strikes. Without these drones, the Russian army would be mostly blind. Thus, it is critical for Ukraine to find a way to neutralize them.

Speaking of the drone-on-drone interception, Andrew Perpetua stated, “This video is incredibly important because Russia’s recon drones are essentially their entire military power. If this is repeatable, if this is scalable, if Ukraine can do this 100 times a day or 200 times a day, it would be game-changing. That’s roughly how many drones Russia uses, I think… It doesn’t have to be 200 a day; it has to be enough to outpace Russian production.

Military soldier controls drone for reconnaissance operation of enemy positions

Photo: Parilov l Shutterstock

He went on to make the bold claim that “…without these recon drones, the Russian military is nothing. Whenever you see an airstrike, the airstrike is because of one of these drones. Whenever you see a missile strike, the missile strike is because of one of these drones. Most, if not, the vast majority of their artillery (including barrel, rocket, and missile artillery), it all comes from these drones.”

He even claimed that all the cruise missile strikes – even the ones on Kyiv – are from these drones. If these drones were to be effectively countered, he stated it would completely change everything. “Drones are Ukraine’s biggest threat. They have always been Ukraine’s biggest threat,“​ he said.​​​​​​

He noted that no one knows Russian production numbers, but it is known production has gone up dramatically – especially with Orlan 30s.

Unmanned Russian military drone Lancet flying

Photo: Anelo l Shutterstock

Andrew Peturtura even said that forcing Russian surveillance drones to fly higher would be a major development, as it would significantly reduce Russia’s reconnaissance and decrease the resolution of the drone’s video feed. He also noted that finding and tracking the recon drones is one of the challenges.

Several more videos have emerged online since the Andrew Pepertua stream two days ago. This suggests that Ukraine has developed a new capability to take out high-altitude Russian recon drones effectively.

It should be noted that there is rarely ever a ‘game changer’ or silver bullet in war. War is a game of countering, counter-countering, counter-counter-countering, and so on. However, some developments can give belligerents significant advantages—at least for a period of time.

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The war of the drones

The drone war in Ukraine is proving a watershed moment for military drones and the way war is fought. This is evolving at break-neck speed. What started out with an ad-hoc group of 80ish drone enthusiasts helping save Kyiv in the first days of the war (by reporting Russian positions on WhatsApp) has exploded. Now, both Ukraine and Russia have more drone operators than many armies have regular soldiers.

In another drone development, a month or two ago, a video emerged of a Ukrainian propeller trainer Yak-52 gunning down Russian Orlan drones over the city of Odesa like it was a 1945 dogfight.

Bayraktar TB2 in service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Photo: Mike Mareen l Shutterstock

The drone war in Ukraine should not be equated with the United States’ use of military drones. In addition to basic FPV and recon drones, the United States operates many advanced drones (such as the Reaper and Gray Eagle), the types of which are not seen in Ukraine. These drones are used for surveillance and missile strikes in low-threat environments (such as counter-insurgency operations). In a rare confrontation between the US and Russia, a Russian Su-27 aircraft forced an American MQ-9 Reaper to crash in an incident over the Black Sea in 2023.

The United States is also looking to develop a very, very different type of drone war by developing the AI-driven Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), aka loyal wingman drone, for its sixth-generation NGAD fighter program.

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