Ukraine's using its cheap drones to blind the eyes in the sky guiding Russia's behind-the-lines strikes

• Russia uses expensive reconnaissance drones to direct fire at Ukraine's forces, slowing its advance.
• But Ukraine is getting better at using much cheaper drones to stop them, experts said.
• Ukraine and Russia are in a technology race, and Russia hasn't been seen taking this step yet, they said.

Ukraine is getting better at using its cheap drones to stop Russia from collecting the battlefield intelligence it needs to launch attacks against Ukrainian forces, warfare experts said.

The Washington DC-based think tank the Institute for the Study for War said in an update earlier this month that Ukraine's drone operators appear to be improving their ability to stop Russia's longer-range reconnaissance drones in mid-air.

Riley Bailey, a Russia analyst at the ISW, explained to Business Insider that there has been footage of Ukrainian forces using cheap, off-the-shelf, first-person view (FPV) drones to intercept more expensive Russian reconnaissance drones.

He described this as a "notable" development, particularly as there has been no evidence of Russian forces doing the same.

He said that this suggests "Ukrainian forces might have a technological advantage — but not one that they have employed at scale yet." The capability has potential, though, especially given the challenges facing Ukraine.

Ukraine's strained air defenses have created openings for the Russian forces, allowing them to operate higher-end unmanned systems more freely to obtain a better battlefield intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) picture.

Jack Watling, a land warfare expert with the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, wrote in a May analysis that "Orlan-10 UAVs are now roaming far and wide over the front lines," adding that the increased presence of these types of ISR drones is "allowing their troops to accurately detect and destroy targets behind the front lines" with rocket artillery and tactical ballistic missiles.

These drones can also threaten advancing Ukrainian forces by relaying targeting information to troops with tactical long-range fires units that can then blunt assaults.

Bailey said Russia's reconnaissance drones "play a very critical role" in helping Russia decide what Ukrainian targets to fire on. The drones tell artillery units where concentrations of troops and equipment are, and where assaults are planned, so then the artillery can "play a very impactful role in repelling those assaults."

Russia has taken advantage of the constraints on Ukraine's air defenses and deployed more fixed-wing reconnaissance drones, even sending them deep into Ukraine's rear areas, ISW said. Doing so has likely allowed Russia to improve the accuracy of its strikes.

Ukraine doesn't have enough air defense systems to shoot all of Russia's reconnaissance drones down, a Ukrainian military expert said, nor does it want to necessarily expend expensive interceptor missiles on drones like the Orlan-10, which is said to cost between $87,000 and $120,000.

That makes the cheap FPV drone strategy more crucial.

Bailey said that "if Ukraine can use a very cheap FPV drone to target and degrade that reconnaissance element, that's a relatively cost-effective way to degrade the recon drones, save your air defense missiles, and use those systems to target more critical and significant air targets."

If Ukraine could conduct intercept operations with cheap FPV drones at scale, it would allow Ukraine to degrade Russia's abilities while conserving the much more expensive and limited air defense systems it gets from its partners, keeping them to use instead against "more expensive and significant Russian air targets," ISW said.

ISW explained that this kind of innovation has the potential to reduce the pressure on Ukraine's air defense systems, which the country says are insufficient. Ukraine has said it needs additional systems from partner nations to protect itself from Russia's attacks.

This innovation also reflects Ukraine's broader efforts to find solutions to Russia's material advantages.

Drones, especially cheap, hobby-style quadcopter drones, have been used more in Russia's war in Ukraine than in any other conflict in history. Both sides have used them to target soldiers, equipment, and cities and to gather intelligence to direct more powerful weaponry.

Both Russia and Ukraine have been constantly trying to develop new types of drones and new ways to use them, as well as new ways to foil each other's drones.

Bailey said that "both Russian and Ukrainian forces are trying to test and field new technological capabilities that give them an edge on the battlefield and then try to scale that up before their adversary can do the same or can quickly institute countermeasures to that new capability."

He said that both sides have increased how often they take out each others' FPV drones with their own FPV drones.

"We've seen that pretty widely. I would still not say that it is an incredibly common occurrence, but we're definitely seeing it throughout the front line on both sides."

Some drone dogfights in Ukraine have been compared to the air battles that took place in WWI.

Bailey said Ukraine's increasing ability is "very indicative of a key element of how the war in Ukraine is developing, which is this offense-defense race."

He said that the Ukrainians have often been ahead of Russia when it comes to drone technologies, including being the first to use FPV drones at scale along the front lines, "and Russian forces had to catch up with that."

He said that "for Ukraine, one of the theories of victory is being able to adapt as quickly as possible, discover new technological innovation, build up the production of that technological innovation to then employ at scale along the front line at critical moments to seek advantage and to offset the material and manpower advantages that Russian forces have."