During Ukraine’s surprise offensive into the Kursk region, one striking feature was videos of first-person view (FPV) drones bringing down Russian military helicopters mid-flight.
In the 30-month war that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion, attack and surveillance drones are everywhere targeting vehicles, troops and defensive positions. It is no surprise therefore that Ukraine’s Aug. 6 cross-border incursion into the Kursk region was supported by swarms of drones. The difference this time was some of the drones’ targets.
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On the second day of its advance, a video showed a Ukrainian FPV with an explosive payload chasing and then striking a Russian Mil Mi-28 (NATO: Havoc) attack helicopter in mid-air somewhere over Kursk, bringing it down and killing its two-man crew.
It could have been put down to blind luck if it had been a one-off. Two days later, a second Ukrainian FPV drone repeated the trick against a Russian Mil Mi-8 (NATO: Hip) transport helicopter also over the region.
A couple of weeks before the Kursk incursion an FPV drone struck and destroyed Moscow's Mi-8 medical-evacuation helicopter as it was taking off in eastern Ukraine killing all those on board.
Having first dismissed the truthfulness of the reports, Russia is now taking the threat seriously. A report in the military issues website DefenseMirror.com said on Aug. 19 that the country’s main helicopter manufacturer “Russian Helicopters” has admitted that its aircraft may be vulnerable to similar drone attacks and said that it was working on upgrade solutions to protect itself from the “new” threat and to enhance its helicopters’ defensive capabilities against unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
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Speaking at Russia’s Army-2024 Forum a company spokesperson said, “We did not anticipate the widespread use of such drones when the conflict began two years ago. Our company is currently working on solutions to address this new type of threat.”
There are numerous technological, tactical, or other countermeasures it could explore to counter the drone threat but that could take more time than they have if this is indeed a conscious tactic on the part of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU).
An immediate solution has been put forward by Russia’s Adventori private company which says it has developed an airborne version of its Volnorez (Breakwater) armored vehicle counter-drone electronic warfare (EW) system.
Having revealed the new device at the Army-2024 Forum the company said its airborne drone jammer has been trialed and, although it showed promise, admitted that it still needs some “improvements and finishing touches before it's ready to go into service with the Russian armed forces.”
Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko commented that he believes the Volnorez system’s capability of protecting ground based vehicles to be overstated, describing it as practically useless. He argues that it has been deployed on the battlefield for a year without significantly impacting the success of the AFU's FPV kamikaze drone attacks.
The chances of Volnorez being the answer to the new threat is further jeopardized by the fact that the complete system, along with all of its technical documentation, was recovered by Ukrainian forces as they advanced into the Kursk region on Aug. 14. Its loss potentially represents a game-changing breach of security on Moscow’s part that could alter the military technological balance in Ukraine’s favor.
It seems just as likely that Ukraine’s boffins are just to come up with countermeasures to Adventori’s countermeasures before Russia develop them enough to stop Kyiv's FPV attacks against its rotary winged aircraft.
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