Ukraine’s long-range attacks bring war to Russia

Western technology and finance are helping Ukraine carry out hundreds of long-range attacks inside Russia.

Although NATO allies have refused to grant Ukraine permission to use Western-supplied ammunition to do so – largely out of fear of escalating tensions.

Over the past few months, Ukraine has stepped up long-range attacks on Russian territory by launching dozens of drones at once at strategic targets several times a week.

Targets included air bases, oil and ammunition depots and command centers.

Ukrainian companies are now producing hundreds of armed, one-way attack drones per month, at a fraction of the cost of producing a similar drone in the West.

One company told the BBC it had made a disproportionate impact on Russia’s war economy at a relatively small cost.

The BBC has been briefed by several people involved in these missions. They include one of Ukraine’s largest manufacturers of single-aim attack drones, as well as a big data company that helped develop the software for Ukraine to carry out these attacks.

Francisco Serra-Martins said the strategy has created major dilemmas for Moscow. He believes that with additional investment, it will turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor.

Eighteen months ago, the company he co-founded, Terminal Autonomy, didn’t even exist. Today, it produces more than a hundred of its long-range AQ400 Scythe drones a month, with a range of 750 kilometers (465 miles). It also produces hundreds of shorter-range AQ100 Bayonet drones a month, which can fly a few hundred kilometers.

These drones are made of wood and assembled in old furniture factories in Ukraine.

Mr Serra-Martins, a former Royal Australian Army Engineer, founded the company with his Ukrainian co-founder, which is funded by the US, and is one of at least three companies currently manufacturing drones in Ukraine on a large scale.

He describes his drones as “basically flying furniture – we assemble them like Ikea”.

It takes about an hour to build the fuselage and half that time to install internal components such as electronics, engines and explosives.

The company’s Bayonet drone costs a few thousand dollars. By contrast, a Russian anti-aircraft missile used to shoot it down could cost more than $1 million.

It’s not just cheap drones that are making a difference.

Palantir, an American big data analytics company, was one of the first Western tech companies to support Ukraine’s war effort. The company began by providing software to improve the speed and accuracy of artillery strikes. Now, the company has provided Ukraine with new tools to plan long-range drone strikes.

Palantir’s British engineers, working with Ukrainian partners, designed a program to generate and map the best ways to reach a target. Palantir explicitly says it was not involved in these missions, but it did help train more than 1,000 Ukrainians to use its software.

The BBC has demonstrated how it works. Using the data stream, it can map out Russia’s air defences, radars and electronic jammers. The end product looks like a topographical chart.

The tighter the contour, the stronger the air defense system. The locations were identified by Ukraine using commercial satellite imagery and signals intelligence.

Palantir’s Louis Mosley said the program is helping Ukraine evade Russian air defenses and electronic warfare to reach its targets.

“Understanding and visualizing what’s happening across the entire battlespace is really important to optimizing these missions,” he said.

The long-range drone strikes are being coordinated by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, who work in secret. But the BBC has been given some details by other sources.

Multiple drones can be fired for any given mission – up to 60 drones can be fired at the same target.

The attacks are mostly carried out at night. Most are shot down. Only 10% reach their targets. Some drones are even shot down en route by friendly fire – Ukrainian air defenses.

Ukraine has had to find a way to counter Russian electronic jamming. Terminal Autonomy’s Scythe drone uses visual positioning – navigating its path and examining the terrain using Artificial Intelligence. There is no pilot involved.

Palantir’s software will map out the best routes. Piloting multiple drones is key to overwhelming and exhausting Russian air defenses, Serra-Martins said. Likewise, drones are cheaper to build than the missiles that try to shoot them down or the targets they try to attack.

Professor Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute said Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks were creating a dilemma for Moscow. Although Russia has a large number of air defense systems, it still cannot protect everything.

Professor Bronk said Ukraine’s long-range attacks were showing Russians that “the state cannot fully protect them and that Russia is vulnerable”.

Ukrainian drones were detected more than 1,000km (620 miles) inside Russia. They were shot down over Moscow.

But the focus is on military sites. The map below highlights just a few of the dozens of targets that have been attacked in recent months. They include five Russian air bases.

Professor Justin Bronk said targeting Russian air bases was so far the only effective way Ukraine could respond to Russian glide bombs.

This forced Russia to move its aircraft to more distant bases and reduce the frequency of its attacks. Satellite imagery shows that Ukrainian drones successfully destroyed hangars at Marynovka air base.

Ukraine clearly believes it could do much more with the help of Western-made long-range weapons. But so far, the allies have rejected Kyiv’s calls.

There is still a lingering fear, especially in Washington and Berlin, that this could drag the West deeper into the conflict. But that has not stopped Western companies and finance from helping Ukraine.

Ukraine still relies largely on domestic efforts, believing that bringing the war to Russia is the key to winning the war.

Francisco Serra-Martins also believes that Western manufacturers remain “completely unprepared” to fight high-intensity warfare – producing much fewer long-range weapons at much higher costs. What Ukraine really needs now, he says, “is a lot of good enough systems”.

The BBC has spoken to a Ukrainian company that is developing a new cruise missile that is at least 10 times cheaper than the British-made Storm Shadow.

Despite Western concerns, Ukraine is planning to step up its attacks on Russia. “What you are seeing now is nothing compared to what you will see later this year,” Mr Serra-Martins said.