How drones are shaping the war for Ukraine and Russia

DW (English)

Drones are a relatively cheap instrument of war that has become crucial in the conflict in Ukraine. But as the Ukrainians become more sophisticated in how they use drones, the Russians are adapting and learning how to defend against them.

Transcript

00:00 Getting ready to fly. This is a Leleka, Ukrainian for stork.

00:07 A reconnaissance drone that has proven crucial in this war.

00:11 With a range of 50 kilometres, it can fly far behind the enemy line.

00:16 Their advantage is that the enemy's air defence almost never sees it.

00:21 It's small and has just a minimum of metal.

00:29 The Leleka is part of what the Ukrainians call their drone army.

00:34 The drone pilots communicate directly with the command centre

00:46 and artillery often fires based on their real-time images.

00:50 But this makes the drone crews a target.

00:53 We've been detected before and their artillery fired at us.

01:02 They try to find us and of course they will try to annihilate us.

01:06 Russia is also frequently using electronic jamming technology,

01:13 blocking the connection between drone and operator.

01:17 That is how most of them are lost.

01:21 You have to learn how to get it back without a signal, without video transmission.

01:27 That all comes with experience.

01:30 You learn some of that in training, but many nuances are not part of the training.

01:35 That only comes with experience.

01:38 To visit the next drone crew in action, we have to go further towards the front line.

01:46 The most frequently used drone is a consumer model from China, the DJI Mavic.

01:51 It is cheap and easy to get.

01:54 But it has a very small range, so operators need to get close to the enemy.

01:59 The Russians are just over there. We are now less than two kilometres from their positions.

02:09 Our task is to keep watch over a quadrant of land.

02:12 At the moment we don't see anything interesting.

02:15 Our task is to constantly fly over this area and keep watch.

02:19 We are now in the middle of the forest.

02:31 We are not in the middle of the forest, but we are in the middle of the forest.

02:35 Suddenly the connection is lost.

02:40 Russia is jamming again.

02:43 When this happens, you have to leave the woods.

02:50 It's very dangerous out in the open,

02:53 but you have to get as close as you can to the drone to try to get the signal back.

03:01 They often lose two or three drones a week.

03:05 They do have a lot of jamming equipment, and it's powerful.

03:11 They have electronic guns which can cut our signal.

03:15 They are good at that.

03:17 I feel their drone army is weaker than ours,

03:21 but their jamming is much more powerful.

03:27 As this war is increasingly fought with drones,

03:30 it becomes a question of who has the technological edge

03:34 and who can improvise around that.

03:36 This drone has made it out of the jamming zone.

03:39 It will need a set of fresh batteries.

03:42 Then it will be ready to fly again.

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