The Ukrainian government wants to spend more than $1 billion to build an army of drones. Drones are cost-effective when compared with conventional weapons, and put fewer lives at risk as a grueling counteroffensive grinds on.
LUHANSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Flying above enemy lines, a Ukrainian reconnaissance drone sends a clear image back to soldiers hiding in a basement a few kilometers away: A Russian armored vehicle is idling along a key logistics route, looking like easy prey in the artillery-scarred green landscape.
They are also more precise than traditional artillery — which is in short supply — and can deliver outsized impacts, such as real-time mapping of the battlefield, destroying tanks and ships, and bringing Russian advances to a halt.
Hiding in a barn house haloed in morning light, a pilot who goes by the battlefield name Bakeneko pops on a head-mounted display and is instantly transported, soaring above verdant fields bustling with Russian combat vehicles and infantrymen.
After three months of trial and error, Ukrainian soldiers operating in the eastern village of Andriivka, south of Bakhmut, figured out how to evade Russian jamming devices that had long stymied their drones.
Over time, the Ukrainian military has responded by launching its own military-grade drones deep behind enemy lines, targeting warships in the Black Sea, an airport in Western Russia and even buildings in Moscow, according to Russian officials and media.
The acceleration of short-range drone warfare by units like Giocondo’s is in direct response to the trouble Ukrainian forces experienced this summer using conventional weapons to try to punch through Russia’s fortified defenses.
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