How Ukraine’s troops are forced to use improvised weapons on the frontline | DW News

How Ukraine’s troops are forced to use improvised weapons on the frontline | DW News

to the battlefield in Ukraine where ke’s troops are fighting to contain recent Russian advances and prevent more territory losses short on air defenses and waiting for more Western Military Support Ukraine is turning to improvised weapons for the front line DW’s Nick Connelly met soldiers using agricultural drones to make up for missing Firepower you have to get a feel for it flying this thing is like leading a cow over ice it’s heavy you have to be able to predict where it’s going to go you steer It One Direction but the inertia means it’s still going the other way for a while this drone was built to spray crops it’s noisy slow and impossible to miss in daylight but here on the front lines it flies at night harassing Russian positions Russian soldiers have their own name for it Baba after the flying Witch of Slavic folktales well we fly pretty low and can go up to 20 km our job is to contain the enemy to make sure their infantry doesn’t get anywhere near our infantry that’s a sound these men says allows them to relax it’s outgoing Ukrainian artillery fire delayed Western supplies have meant that most of the fire around here in recent months has been incoming these drones were all the Ukrainian side had this Carriage is where the unit’s engineer tries to keep one step ahead of Russia’s jamming efforts our biggest worry is staying connected to the drones the government gives us these drones and they just use one frequency for everything video and telemetrics it’s a mess they’ve given us a civilian product it just doesn’t work under real life conditions here within earshot of the front lines the unit’s engineer adds antennas and extra equipment paid for by crowdfunding the owners of this garage have long since evacuated leaving their tools behind this is the tool kit that’s come with me since I was called up I don’t touch the owner stuff I think I think I borrowed the grinder in here a few times but we leave things tidy when we leave a place the cats are always fatter when we leave a place at the moment there’s no talk of having to leave this garage or even to pull back here for all of Russia’s recent advances near donet this section of the front lines has been relatively stable thanks in part to these drones here deep underground is where all the information comes together dispatchers has help the Drone Pilots out in the field to plan their routes something that’s constantly getting harder with ever more drones in the air watching each other just the other day we were watching the stream and saw a kamikazi drone chasing another kamikazi drone all of a sudden a third drone turns up to attack the Drone hunting the first drone all I could think of was the soundtrack from Terminator 2 sometimes it feels like the war of the machines here but it’s not just the technology that’s changing when we first came across the Russian army they didn’t have a clue about war they were really full of themselves they would always use the same tactics which we knew from a to zed it was easy to catch them out with a bit of creativity But as time passes there are more and more mobilized civilians among their ranks and they bring their own ideas to the Russian army not only are these Russian conscripts bringing their own ideas they’re also successfully copying Ukrainian ones they’re doing it at a scale that Ukraine is struggling to match and DW’s Marx Tander joins us for more on this story from ke how effective are these converted drones right Ben so when uh over the last two years um drones have really changed uh the way um this uh war is being f changed the situation um on on the battlefield we heard in the rep report in the beginning of this war standard tactics were being applied a standard standard weapons were being used such as infantry artillery um tanks that sort of thing when drones were being introduced uh this added an extra layer um uh cheap commercially available drones were able to spot the enemy um uh pinpoint targets for artillery for example later on combat drones like theong to saw Nick’s report uh were introduced they’re becoming more and more widespread according to uh Ukraine General staff up to 70% of Russian equipment now is being destroyed by these kind of drones and they really um are able to change and limit the movement of the adversary being it Ukrainian or being it Russian um if you’re moving especially in an open ter terrain uh during the day uh you really risk being being spotted or being targeted by drones or by being uh by other uh other troops that are using this type of in information so movement is really limited and uh cover and concealment is becoming more and more important especially in the open field to what extent would you say they can make up for the slow supply of Western weapons right I mean these these drones were born out of necessity in a sense that there was a lack of of of powerful um or Western weapons in this case um these drones do have some advantages they can be operated from their rear they can support uh infantry they have a a relatively wide reach and uh they um are also able to effectively support infantry troops for example um and they are very cheap we saw like a lot of these uh drones are crowdfunded they’re being put together um by volunteers um by the military in sheds in workplaces by by different startup companies um but they they they were having an effect on the battlefield for sure but in order to um to deupi uh parts of Ukraine in order to move fortificat front lines uh drones will not be enough um in order to be able to do that you will need combined weapons you will need heavy weapons you will need artillery you will need uh air superiority you will need tanks boots on the ground drones will definitely have their place in this um if we see more Western weapons coming in then likely the use of drones is going to go down um but so far they are making they they are uh playing a very important role uh in this work for now you mentioned earlier how uh drones changing uh Warfare but tell us more about how it’s actually changing how combat is carried [Applause] out right I mean you have um drones that are being used by the Infantry such as first-person view drones um suicide or kamikazi drones you have more sophisticated drones Ming ammunition that is being launched by either side that circles an area that is able to by itself uh search for uh search for enemy vehicles for example and attack them in addition to that when we talk about drone attacks here in Ukraine often times um we’re talking about Shahed drones Larch ammunition that is uh started in large swarms for swarms for example from Crimea to attack cities across the entire country here in Ukraine Ukraine is also using types these types of drones to attack uh Targets in Russia for example oil refineries across the country as far as as uh St Petersburg um for example and in addition to that what I think is also very remarkable the use of drones in this war is how they’re being used not in the air uh but in the sea um if you remember the beginning of the full scale Invasion the port of Odessa was blocked by the Russian Navy um the ukrainians without having a fleet of their own were able to push the second largest Navy in the world out of the western part of the Black Sea by using sea drones essentially um jet skis with remote controls Camas and and and a big bomb a little bit more sophisticated about that but we able to to to SN ships and push uh the Russian Navy um uh away from from their ports from their from their western coastline some really interesting details there from bu Sunday and Keith thanks for joining us

Short on air defenses and waiting for more Western military support, Ukraine is turning to improvised weapons to hold Russian soldiers back on the frontline. DW’s Nick Connolly met soldiers using agricultural drones to make up for missing firepower.

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