WASHINGTON – Iranians Shahed-136 The drones are designed to explode on impact, and on Monday Russian forces launched 43 of them at targets across Ukraine. An attack on an apartment building in the capital Kyiv killed four people, including a woman six months pregnant.
As the war entered its ninth month, Shahed was among dozens of drones, including remote-controlled surveillance and programmable flying bombs. being used on the battlefields in Ukraine. They also include military drones made by the United States, Turkey, and Russia, and commercial-grade drones made in China.
It’s not clear the full range of models and which countries offer them. But the rapid increase in the number and types of drones deployed in warfare signals that smaller, less expensive weapons like the Shahed are likely to become a staple in conflicts. modern armed assault.
Some are surveillance drones – drone systems in military parlance – essentially small aircraft with propeller-driven wings that are controlled by radio signals. Larger models of this type can spy on enemy forces or carry missiles and bombs to strike targets on the ground. They land and can be refueled and flown again.
These larger surveillance drones can be expensive, so both Ukrainian and Russian forces have been using drones – battery-powered commercial drones that are a lot cheaper. Quadcopters fly shorter distances and hover over a location before dropping small weapons like grenades at enemy troops and vehicles. They are designed to be recovered, recycled and reused once the battery is recharged.
However, many of the weapons that terrorize Kyiv and other Ukrainian civilian areas are what the defense industry calls “the loitering bombs.” These drones explode on impact, which is why they are sometimes referred to as kamikaze drones.
The United States has been shipping Ukraine weapons of this type since the beginning of the war.
In March, the Pentagon announced it would send 100 “tactical drone systems” called Switchblades. The following month, the authorities said they would supply 300 more. Eight days later, the Department of Defense said it would send 120 Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukraine. In July, the United States provided money to Ukraine to buy 580 more of them.
In August, the Pentagon said it would send Puma . unmanned aerial vehicle – small aircraft that soldiers toss into the air to launch and then control by remote control up to nine miles away. Pumas can be at an altitude of about 500 feet.
The White House did not provide Kyiv with larger drones such as the Predator and Reaper, which US forces used in the wars that began after the September 11 attacks. Both planes can fly for hours. watches while sending a live video feed back to the ground and carrying laser-guided missiles and guided bombs.
Immediately after the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian army began to use Turkish Bayraktar TB2 . unmanned aerial vehicle to hunt down Russian soldiers far beyond the front lines. These drones, which have a 39-foot wingspan and carry small-guided munitions, were Ukraine’s main long-range weapon until the United States began supplying mobile missile launchers. called HIMARS and guided bullets for them.
Iran’s Mohajer-6, another weapon Russia is flying over Ukraine, is similar to Bayraktar. It has a wingspan of 33 feet, a range of more than 1,240 miles, and can drop or launch small munitions. Iran also supplies Shahed-136 to Houthi fighters in Yemen in 2021, Defense Intelligence Agency Director told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In addition to the Shahed-136 and Mohajer-6, the Russian military has used at least 10 other types of drones, according to Conflict Armament Research, an independent UK-based group dedicated to identifying and tracking weapons and ammunition Medicines used in world wars. These include Russian-made Orlan-10 and Kartograf surveillance models.
The popularity of these weapons is increasing rapidly around the world.
A 2017 survey by the Center for Drone Research at Bard University found that nine countries are developing or producing 26 models of stray bombs.
“Today, there are more than 100 models of bombs under development or production in at least 24 countries,” said Dan Gettinger, who studies armed drones and founded the center.
“In recent years, armed conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine have contributed to increased interest and investment in arming bombs and ammunition in Europe – France, Italy and the UK have kicked off. efforts to buy bombs and bullets in the past 18 months”, Mr. Gettinger said.
The Shahed-136 is the most powerful Iranian weapon Russia is using in Ukraine. It weighed about 450 pounds, he said, and was believed to contain between 80 and 90 pounds of explosives.
After several failed attempts, Russia’s use of Iranian drones could be a sign that the country is running out of precision-guided weapons.
Peter W. Singer, a defense author and member of the think tank New America, said: “This is more of a story about a great power trying to make up for losses on the battlefield. the field by stoking fear from a new weapon targeting civilians. “It also tells us what is to come as the technology becomes more advanced and pervasive – just as rockets have gone from fiction and not all are as effective as usual in war, what is the future? The same will happen with a series of armed drones.
“As recently as a few months ago, there was still controversy between the two about whether drones would be effective in a major conventional war, rather than just fighting terrorism and insurgency,” he said. he said. “That debate is now completely over.”
