May 9, 2025:
Russian Fiber Optics Guided or FOG drones are being used by the Ukrainians to reveal where the Russian drone operators are. This is done with Ukrainian First Person View or FPV drones equipped with a sensor that tracks the movement of the Russian drone and where it was launched by its hidden operator. The sensor leads Ukrainian drones to that location where the operator is killed and any additional drones with him destroyed. Ove vital task for the Ukrainian drones is attacking Russian truck traffic near the front line. Current Ukrainian drones can destroy trucks operating within ten kilometers of the front. Without the trucks Russian troops have to carry supplies or pull carts full of material to the front line. This is manageable. But now the Ukrainians are about to introduce a larger drone with a range of 40 kilometers. That distance is prohibitive for Russian supply movement. In other words, the Ukrainians will starve the Russians out.
Ukrainian drone developers, operating under wartime pressure, have been very innovative. In the last year new drone designs entering service have been impressive. This increased innovation began with new countermeasures to foster attacks by remotely controlled drone swarms. The usual Russian defense is jamming the control signals. The new Ukrainian swarms have drones capable of operating independently when jammed and continuing the attack with less accuracy but, because it is a swarm with dozens of drones, some are still going to hit the target. This was used against the Russians but the enemy quickly came up with their own new countermeasures.
Ukrainians are able to modify their tactics and technology much more quickly than the Russians. One was FPV drones planting magnetic mines on the edge of a road or trail Russian armored vehicles are headed for. When the armored vehicles show up, all that moving metal activates the magnetic mines, blowing the tracks or wheels off the armored vehicles. Immobilized crews are terrified and abandon their vehicles; another FPV drone with more explosives arrives to finish off the immobilized vehicles.
Ukraine also developed the expendable Flamingo VB140 anti-drone interceptor, a meter-long, fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft that can operate at altitudes up to 4,500 meters and fifty kilometers from its launch site. Flamingo VB140 intercepts by crashing into airborne drones on its target list. If no targets are found, Flamingo VB140 will just fall to the ground when its battery is out of power.
Flamingo VB140 was effective and by early 2025 the Ukrainian military had ordered production of a number of new FPV drone designs. One of the more impressive of these is Vidmak. While it appears to be just another quadcopter, its software enables it to operate at higher speeds to overtake the fastest wheeled vehicles and disable or destroy them with less than a kilogram of explosives. Able to operate at night and in bad weather, its speed is used for surprise nighttime attacks against enemy troops in trenches or standing in bunker entrances.
Ukrainian developers independently produced several other similar drone designs like U15, Baton, Zeus and Hades. Ukraine is relying more on drones to intercept relatively slow moving Russian cruise missiles. Most of these cost tens of thousands of dollars. Bringing them down with drones that cost five or six hundred dollars has left the Russians with patchy reconnaissance capabilities. Russia never expected Ukrainian drones to be effective anti-aircraft weapons.