New Suicide Drones Changed The Front Lines in Ukraine

 

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The New York Times thru Adamfoxie blog

By C.J. Chivers

Photographs and Video by David Guttenfelder

Chivers reported from the front lines and from drone workshops in Ukraine and reviewed footage of thousands of drone attacks. 

The suicide drone beelined toward a strip of forest separating two agricultural fields. A remotely piloted quadcopter with a wingspan narrower than that of a duck, a camera in its nose and an antenna protruding from its tail, it crossed into Russian airspace unchallenged minutes before. An armor-piercing warhead hung from its underside. Now, about 18 miles south of Belgorod, it descended toward cropland with about five minutes of battery power remaining. It was time to hunt.

• Listen to this article, read by Robert FassSeveral miles away, in the basement of an abandoned home inside Ukraine, the drone’s pilot, who uses the name Prorok, Ukrainian for “Prophet,” clutched the miniaircraft’s controller with both hands and gazed into goggles displaying its live video feed. His team leader, who uses the name Buryi, or “Brown,” sat to his right, monitoring the flight on the bright screens of two tablets while communicating with a distant lieutenant via a laptop. Minutes earlier, a bomb-laden quadcopter flown by another team slammed against a howitzer hidden in the tree line. Prorok and Buryi’s mission was to assess damage, find survivors and kill them. Russian artillery pieces were rarely unattended or alone.
  Smoke rose from vegetation where the cannon had been. “Fly to the target,” Buryi said.
  Prorok’s fingers manipulated the tiny flight controls. Moving about 30 miles per hour, the drone slipped below the tree line’s canopy, pointed its lens at the smoke and slowly approached. Nearing the plume, it banked left with its nose angled down.