September 2024 Developments

Highlights

• Both Hezbollah and Hamas are showing increasing sophistication in their use of drones,
• marking a new chapter in these groups’ conflict with Israel. PG. 7
• In response to a Hezbollah rocket attack on Sept. 8, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
• launched retaliatory airstrikes against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon — the largest
• Israeli air assault on Lebanese territory since 2006. PG. 7
• The IDF has improved its air defense systems to detect and intercept small drones,
• including FPVs. PG. 11
• After Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion, Ukrainians have developed their combat
• drone doctrine — including ways to integrate drones into offensive operations. PG. 12
• While the Ukrainian military has managed to build an impressive domestic drone
• manufacturing capability, they still overly rely on China for components. PG. 13
• The Russian military has recently received approximately 200 Fath missiles for the Iranian
• produced and supplied Fath-360 MLSR. PG. 15
• Some Ukrainian commanders say the threat of another Russian incursion from Belarus is
• simply a Kremlin psyop meant to demoralize Ukraine’s civilian population. PG. 16

editor's note

In August 2014, several months after Russia invaded eastern Ukraine for the first time, a team of students and engineers from Kyiv’s Step IT Academy gathered at a downtown athletic field to showcase their novel contribution to the war effort. While curious joggers trotted past, Ivan Dovgal, head of the Academy’s robotics lab, ran pre-flight checks on a small quadcopter drone modified for battlefield surveillance.

Soon thereafter, a Ukrainian special operations team arrived. Dovgal’s crew promptly began their lesson, patiently guiding each commando through takeoff, a few basic maneuvers, and a gentle landing — all controlled through an iPad app. After the test flights were done, one bearded special operator smiled and slapped a bespectacled engineer on the shoulder and said, “Now we need to put grenades on these things.”

Frustrated by Kyiv’s lukewarm interest in unmanned technologies at the time, Dovgal had tapped into the technical know-how and creativity of his students and staff to launch a crowdfunded drone assembly and training program. They called themselves the “soldiers of soldering iron.” Operating from their university’s workshop, Dovgal’s team worked at a frenetic pace, transforming commercially available DJI Phantom drones into tactical surveillance systems. At a price tag of about $2,300, each modified drone carried a Sony A-7 video camera, allowing troops to remotely observe enemy positions without exposing themselves to ambush. For his part, Dovgal (who had no prior military experience) frequently traveled to the front lines to teach soldiers how to operatethe drones. Dovgal and his “soldiers of soldering iron” belonged to a generation of technologically savvy

Ukrainian volunteers who launched grassroots programs to build drones and train operators when the war began in 2014. By the time Russia fully invaded in February 2022, this constellation of Ukrainian volunteers had acquired some eight years of experience in jury-rigging commercial, off-the-shelf drones for a wide range of combat roles, including aerial reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and dropping small munitions.

Many of these innovations were driven from the bottom up by enterprising soldiers and engineers. In the summer of 2015, for example, one front-line Ukrainian unit filled empty energy drink cans with explosives, and then attached a tail fin made from a 3D printer to complete an improvised bomb to be dropped from quadcopter drones — the early stages of a tactic used to devastating effect during the full-scale war.

Following Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion, Ukraine leveraged its pre-existing drone warfare experience to score some early wins. The Aerorozvidka Air Reconnaissance Unit employed drones to interdict a massive Russian convoy traveling from Chernobyl to Kyiv. And during the Battle of Kyiv, about 80 Ukrainian drone operators created a group chat on WhatsApp to share Russian targets with artillery crews. Despite their creativity, the Ukrainians remained a long way off from anything resembling a crystallized drone warfare doctrine.

In those early days of the full-scale war, Ukrainian troops went on YouTube to learn how to use Javelins and Stingers. And they were also using the internet, primarily through their smartphones, to learn how to build and fly different types of commercially available drones. The Ukrainians’ ability to access and share online information empowered their adaptive edge over the Russians. One Ukrainian soldier said that, in his opinion, Russia’s biggest mistake at the invasion’s outset was to not disable Ukraine’s internet and cell networks.

Apart from their creativity, another of Ukrainians’ key strengths has been their general handiness and practical know-how. In Middle and High School, Ukrainian students take shop class, and learn auto mechanics. Young men and women also learn basic military skills, including marksmanship, and first aid. Most Ukrainians, even those with white-collar jobs, possess a wealth of practical knowledge and skills. The average Ukrainian man can change a flat tire or the oil in his car. He can make basic household repairs without relying on a plumber or an electrician. On the front lines, Ukrainian soldiers are constantly tinkering with and modifying their equipment. And, notably, they possess the basic mechanical skills to make battlefield modifications to their drones.

These are people who can take care of themselves. They know how to survive on very little and to work with what they have on hand. Those qualities have played a large part in Ukraine’s ability to improvise solutions, on the fly, to match their battlefield needs. "We have experience against the Russians since 2014, and we’ve had to teach ourselves,” Serhii Udovkin, commander of a Ukrainian special operations drone company, told this writer. “It was a bloody experience, but we improved our tactics and our units on our own.” A Russian-speaking native of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, Udovkin volunteered to serve in Ukraine’s military when Russian forces captured his hometown in 2014. After serving in combat, Udovkin returned to civilian life and founded a volunteer program to support the development of combat drone use in Ukraine’s armed forces.

Udovkin evacuated his wife and infant child abroad after Russia’s February 2022, full-scale invasion. He then volunteered to return to active-duty service and played a key role in building a drone warfare doctrine for Ukraine’s special operations forces. Prior to his death on a combat mission in the fall of 2023, Udovkin told this correspondent: “The Russians came to our country and killed our people. It’s our country, our land, our families. For us, it’s very clear. We kill them, or they kill us.”

The full-scale war has taken its toll, steadily culling Ukraine’s military ranks of soldiers with prior combat experience, such as Udovkin. To meet its manpower needs, Ukraine has needed to mobilize new troops, and there’s often insufficient time to adequately train them. These days, military units lure new recruits with billboards across the country promising at least a few weeks of basic training before combat.

Knowing what might await them, many civilian men eligible for mobilization are taking it upon themselves to learn the core competencies they will need for the battlefield — and drone use is high on that list. Consequently, there’s been an explosion of commercial drone pilot training programs across Ukraine. FPV programs typically last about a month and include lessons in engineering, simulator time, and practice flights. Some of Ukraine’s top universities, including the Kyiv School of Economics, have launched new drone engineering programs. And drone courses are now commonly included in public education programs. As one Ukrainian drone instructor told the Vector Report: “We need to train our 16-year-olds the skills they need to survive. And that includes flying drones.”

America’s adversaries — and the adversaries of our partners and allies — are similarly prioritizing drone education for their civilian populations. For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russian school children should learn how “to operate, assemble, and design drones from school.” According to Russian news reports, schools across the country have subsequently started drone training courses for students aged 12 to 15. As in Ukraine, Russian volunteer groups and private sector enterprises are involved in drone pilot training. Located just outside of Moscow, Russia’s Center of Integrated Unmanned Solutions specializes in FPV drone development and runs a pilot training program that lasts 25 days. Russian volunteers also launched a drone symposium called “Dronnitsa.” Attended by hundreds of civilian and military drone operators and specialists, the recurring event focuses on training drone flight school instructors. Yet, these flight training initiatives are not immune from Russia’s stifling bureaucracy and endemic corruption. In some cases, petty squabbles with local officials and landlords have shuttered volunteer FPV drone pilot programs.

Despite these issues, Russia enjoys easy access to China’s commercial drone market — particularly the DJI Mavic and Matrice drones, which have a proven track record in combat operations. Russian volunteers purchase these relatively inexpensive drones at scale and deliver them to the front lines

in Ukraine. For its part, Ukraine also relies on Chinese drones and drone components. This week’s Vector Report will analyze that dependency and the risk it poses to Ukraine’s overall drone war effort. This ultimately serves as a cautionary note for the U.S. drone industry, underscoring the pitfalls of relying on Chinese components and subcomponents.

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