Small teams of soldiers control UAVs from off-road vehicles near the front line, transmitting location and topographic data to artillery batteries via military channels on Telegram.
“They give real-time information: ‘Well, guys, 100 meters to the left, 50 meters to the right,’ that kind of thing,” Yakovenko said.
Ulrike Frank, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on the use of drones in conflict, said the Ukrainian military has demonstrated greater innovation than its Russian opponent in incorporating technology into its military response.
“We’re not just looking at drones, but drones used with other systems like artillery,” she said.
“This is what makes the new technology revolutionary, not just having it in the field but how it is used. For the drones used with artillery, this is a system that is being used in a new way and has a real impact.”
Ukraine’s use of drones has gone beyond assisting in targeting artillery. Frank said the reported role of drones in the sinking of the Russian warship Moskva — in which Turkish-made fixed-wing drones were deployed as decoys to deceive the ship’s air defense system — demonstrated its versatility during the conflict. The British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that Ukraine had used drones to do so Attacking Russian air defense and resupplying ships.
“They defend their territory, which usually gets you more creative, and they are more likely to use their civilian volunteers in a way the military wouldn’t normally,” Frank said.
In addition to providing artillery with greater accuracy, drones are also used in eastern Ukraine to reduce friendly fire incidents and avoid collateral damage, according to Iakovenko.
“The Ukrainians are fighting on our land. Our goal is to win with minimal damage to infrastructure and to avoid any possible civilian casualties.” “The drones allow them to strike with maximum accuracy and reduce infrastructure damage.”
However, he acknowledged that Russia was also using drones to good effect in the conflict. Although numbers are difficult to obtain, the more than 50 drones documented to Russia lost since the invasion indicate that they are an essential part of its military operation.
The surveillance and reconnaissance benefits that drones provide wouldn’t mean much without heavy artillery to back them up, and this was a problem for Ukraine in the days of the conflict.
Mark Kansian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the main challenge Ukraine and its allies initially faced was obtaining Soviet-style shells to fit the D-30 howitzers Kyiv already had. These shells have a diameter of 152 mm and cannot be fired with heavy guns according to NATO standards, which have a caliber of 155 mm.
“Once you exclude Russia and China, there are not many places to get them,” Kansyan said of Soviet-standard weapons.
“This is one of the reasons why the United States and others give Ukraine NATO standards, because there are a lot of countries around the world that do,” he said.
In recent weeks, the United States, France and Germany have provided Ukraine with heavy artillery systems. Cancian said Canada has provided the M777 cannon, which can fire guided missiles, and the United States is said to be willing to follow suit.
Kansian, a retired US Marine colonel, said the heavy weaponry coming from NATO allies would allow Ukraine to regularly replenish its ammunition stocks.
“This is very important,” he said, “especially if you think that the war will go on for a long time.”
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