- Ukraine recently shared footage showing its drones attacking two Russian grenade launcher robots.
- Two quadcopter drones can be seen in the video blasting Russian unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs.
- The assault captures an unusual example of drones fighting each other instead of people or armor.
Newly released footage shows Ukrainian quadcopter drones blasting Russian grenade launcher robots, providing a rare glimpse of unmanned systems fighting on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade said its forces used first-person view, or FPV, drones carrying explosives to destroy two of Russia’s “ground robot platforms” equipped with automatic grenade launchers. These Soviet-designed weapons can fire 30mm grenades at targets.
In a video capturing the incident, posted Saturday by the 47th on the messaging app Telegram, the two Russian ground robots are seen operating near the war-torn town of Avdiivka in eastern Russia. Ukraine.
The footage begins by showing the Ukrainian FPV drone hovering near one of the robots, which has a small Russian flag on its back and, like the other, is not moving, indicating that the unmanned vehicle may have already been disabled. The FPV drone then descends on the robot and explodes, blowing up the flag.
The footage then pivots to the second robot sitting nearby amid a large pile of debris, including what looks like a heavily damaged armored vehicle. Another FPV drone is seen hovering above before flying towards the robot and exploding, creating an even larger explosion.
Small, explosive-equipped quadcopter drones played an important role in the war in Ukraine and were frequently used by both sides in one-way attacks on enemy personnel and armor. This engagement, however, reflects the less common occurrence of drone-on-drone combat. No one is involved beyond managing the systems.
Saturday’s engagement also highlights the emerging role of unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, in warfare. These small systems were used to lay landmines, deliver munitions to troops, conduct casualty evacuations, and remove explosives from the battlefield.
“So far these are isolated cases where the Russians used such a technique,” the 47th wrote on Telegram about its Saturday assault, although the specific activity in reference was not immediately clear . Business Insider was not immediately able to verify the claims made in the post.
Samuel Bendett, an expert on drones and Russian military capabilities at the Center for Naval Analyzes think tank, said there was a “rapid proliferation” of small combat and logistics UGVs in Ukraine, but that these systems can be easily identified and destroyed because there are so many of them. numerous drones monitor the battlefield from above. This was also the case for manned vehicles.
“What we will see is the use of many low-cost, lightweight UGVs like those in this video that can be quickly assembled, potentially quickly lost if necessary, and quickly replaced,” Bendett wrote in a statement released Sunday. thread posted on X, referring to the video published by the 47th.
He said it was unclear whether the Russian UGVs in the video were sent into combat in place of the soldiers or in tandem with them. But “as more UGVs enter combat, both sides will attempt to develop tactics and concepts to integrate them into assault and battlefield operations,” he added.
Beyond operations on the ground and in the air, where unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, reign, drones have played a leading role in a third domain of the bloody war in Ukraine: the sea.
Ukraine has relied heavily on a fleet of unmanned surface vehicles, or USVs, packed with explosives to inflict enormous damage on Russia’s Black Sea fleet – compensating for kyiv’s lack of its own navy . This is an asymmetrical style of warfare that Moscow has been unable to coherently defend itself against.
businessinsider
