Short on Shells,
Ukraine Relies on Explosive Drones to Hold Russia Back
The drones are more accurate
than artillery, but far less powerful. They are helping Ukraine to fend off
Russia’s forces, at least for now
A
VILLAGE NEAR ORIKHIV, Ukraine—From a bunker on the southeastern front, it’s
easy to hear how Ukraine’s supply of artillery ammunition has dwindled. For
every five or six incoming Russian shells, the Ukrainians fire back once or
twice.
As
the war approaches its third year, Russia is on the offensive, backed by an
economy on a war footing. Ukraine, meanwhile, is short on ammunition as
additional aid from its main backer, the U.S., remains blocked in Congress.
With
artillery shells running low, Ukrainian troops on the front lines are
improvising and using explosive drones to try to hold the Russians back.
“We’re
increasingly using FPV drones because we have a lack of shells,” said Mykhailo
Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation. But, he added, “drones
can’t replace artillery completely.”
Ukraine’s
growing reliance on FPV, or first-person-view, drones offers a preview of what
the war might look like if the flow of Western weapons to Kyiv were severely
curtailed.
With
additional aid packages from the U.S. and the European Union stalled, Ukrainian
forces are running short on ammunition, money and manpower. Many brigades are
depleted from the summer counteroffensive, which failed to make a significant
breakthrough.
Now,
the Ukrainians are trying to make do until more resources arrive. As in the
first weeks of the war—before Western weapons flooded into the country—that
short-handedness has led to unorthodox tactics and MacGyvered weapons to plug
holes, such as substituting FPV drones for artillery fire.
The
drones can’t fly as far or fast as artillery. They can’t carry as much
explosive, or blast through a concrete wall. But at just a few hundred dollars
each, the drones cost far less than artillery shells and are much easier to
produce—volunteers buy drones from commercial vendors and deliver them to the
soldiers, who rig them with explosives.
Both sides have made increasing use of FPV
drones over the past six months as they’ve shown their usefulness on Ukraine’s
flat, open fields. They’re far more accurate than artillery, allowing the drone
pilots to chase down moving vehicles and troops on foot. While artillery
usually needs several shots to hit a target, FPV drones hit almost every time.
So
far, they’re just about holding back Russian advances around Robotyne village
to the south of the town of Orikhiv, since some artillery units in the area
were sent to other parts of the front.
“They’re putting more and more hopes on us,”
said a 33-year-old commander of an FPV drone squad, who goes by the call sign
Tulayne, meaning “Seal.”
The
Wall Street Journal observed Tulayne’s team on a recent mission in the Robotyne
area, where Russian forces have been trying to win back the territory Ukraine
seized during the counteroffensive.
The
four-man team brought 20 propeller drones, each about the size of a dinner
plate, to a bunker a few miles from the front line.
The
engineer attached different kinds of munitions to a few of the drones—one for
hitting infantry, another designed to penetrate armored vehicles. Then he ran
outside to set up an antenna, with wires running into the bunker to connect to
the pilot.
A
surveillance team spotted at least a dozen Russians in a network of foxholes
not far away. Tulayne, who was acting as pilot, slipped on goggles that let him
see what the drone’s camera sees and grabbed a controller. Then the drone
whirred into the air.
Tulayne
maneuvered toward the entrance to a foxhole, then slammed the drone into it. He
and his colleagues watched a live feed from a surveillance drone as smoke rose
from the foxhole, waiting for Russians to run out. “They’ll come out,” Tulayne
said of the Russians.
The
deputy commander told an engineer to get another drone, armed with a different
kind of munition, ready to take off and hit them again: “He’s bandaging him,”
he surmised. “We need to fly there fast.”
Although
the Ukrainians are relying on FPV drones out of necessity, soldiers operating
around Robotyne said the devices are transforming the front line. Because large
armored vehicles are valuable, easy-to-spot targets, both sides limited their
use on the front line and instead began to rely on vans, or even motorbikes.
But
using the FPV drones, the Ukrainians are now hitting even small vehicles, and
chasing down soldiers on foot.
The
result is that the gray zone—between enemy trenches that neither side
controls—has grown wider, according to soldiers in the area, making it tougher
to advance.
“When
we arrived a few months ago, the enemy was still bringing in people and
ammunition with Jeeps,” said the 31-year-old commander of another FPV platoon
working near Robotyne. “We’ve slowly destroyed all their logistics. Now, they
have to bring boxes and evacuate the wounded on foot.”
Over
the course of their 12-hour shift, Tulayne and his team launched 12 drones. One
was jammed by Russian electronic warfare systems. Two failed to detonate. The
rest slammed into the same network of Russian foxholes. The team believed they
killed two and injured several more.
Still,
the FPV teams said they were operating short-handed in several ways, making
their job tougher.
Tulayne’s
platoon should be twice as large as it is, but he hasn’t been able to recruit
new men, leaving the team overworked.
And
even though the drones are cheap, there’s a limit to how many can be used. The
team must request special approval to hit the same foxhole over and over.
During their recent shift, they requested permission and never got an answer.
Most
of all, Tulayne said, the lack of artillery support is a handicap.
Though
the drones are effective against infantry and vehicles, they can’t carry enough
explosive to destroy fortifications, which artillery can blast through. In
addition, they fly far slower than artillery—about half a mile a minute.
Sometimes, by the time they reach their destination, the target is gone.
A
few months ago, the drones were supplementing artillery, swooping in after
shells had crashed through fortifications and picking off softer targets.
“I’d
just fly toward the clouds where artillery had hit,” Tulayne said. “It’s been a
few weeks since that happened.”
In
addition to seeking foreign arms, Ukraine is working to beef up its production
of FPV drones, including making some that are capable of carrying larger
munitions.
“We
will make a million drones next year,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
said at the end of December. “I agree we have challenges. With amounts of aid,
with artillery shells.”
Meanwhile,
however, Moscow is trying to make the most of its resource advantage, and is
building its own FPV drone army.
“In
the last few weeks, their use of FPV drones has increased three or four times,”
Tulayne said, though he added that Ukraine was still using more. “Their
artillery is working well. They have an advantage in air reconnaissance.”
Though
Tulayne said the Russians hadn’t gained any territory in the area where his
platoon was working, Moscow has slowly been clawing back territory around
Robotyne, according to open-source analysts.