Russia appears to be on the cusp of outperforming Ukraine in the use of drones on the battlefield.
A recent article by BBC sheds light on the Ukrainian retreat from the battle of Kursk. Ukraine has held this pocket of Russian territory since August 2024. It was one of the few bright spots of last year as Ukraine was hard-pressed by Russia, and its other offensives stalled. Now Moscow has forced Ukrainians out of the Kursk area, who told BBC that Russian drones played a major role.
The BBC article matters because it illustrates a drone learning curve that Russia has pursued since the war began. Russia acquired Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones early in the war in 2022 and used them to target Ukraine. These one-way attack drones were not a game changer.
However, Russia’s use of them showed how Iranian-backed groups would use the same drones against Israel after the Hamas attack on October 7. That illustrates how what Russia is doing in Kursk may have ramifications for the Middle East. Reports at Conflict Armament Research revealed this month that the Houthis are working with hydrogen fuel cells to power drones.
What can we learn from the BBC report about the Kursk route? First of all, it was basic military tactics that mauled Ukraine. The report says Kyiv sent around 12,000 soldiers, some of its best trained, into the fight. Russia sent tens of thousands to cordon off the Ukrainian gains and then attempted to roll back the Ukrainians. The report says that, in the end, Kyiv was relying on one road to supply its salient forces.
This is a classic challenge in military terms, and it appears that this road now resembles the Iraqi army’s retreat from Kuwait. Basically, Ukrainians have been fleeing at night and leaving behind equipment and vehicles.
“Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and first-person-view (FPV) variants to ‘take fire control of the main logistics routes.’” The report said. “They included drones linked to operators by fiber-optic wires – which are impossible to jam with electronic counter-measures.”
In another part of the report, in which the BBC spoke to Ukrainian soldiers who have been able to get out of the Kursk front via retreating, it appears that Russian FPV drones, or those using a first-person viewer (FPV) flight mode, have been essential.
'We lost the advantage in drones'
“We used to have an advantage in drones. Now we do not,” a Ukrainian soldier said. “He added that Russia had an advantage with more accurate air strikes and a greater number of troops. We almost died several times. Drones are in the sky all the time.”
How did Russia win the drone war in Kursk? It uses multiple drones, which the article characterizes as “drone swarms.” In fact, this simply means several drones at a time in areas, using them to monitor and strike. “Multiple drones often hunted vehicles,” the report says.
Azerbaijan also used drones to successfully decimate Armenian forces vehicles in battles over Nagorna-Karabakh over the last years.
Another soldier said drones targeted their car. They were constantly attacking the single road. “‘Drones around the clock. In one minute, you can see two to three drones. That’s a lot,” a soldier said. “Russia had also sent its best drone units to the front and was using kamikaze and FPV variants to ‘take fire control of the main logistics routes,’” the report noted.
The use of fiber optics is important because many small quadcopter-type drones can be jammed these days. Drones can be jammed or shot down.
The rush to acquire drones and drone defenses is part of the current way militaries are changing in the Ukraine war and also in the Middle East. This is similar to how tanks or aircraft are developed on the battlefield.
The battle of Kursk has ramifications for other battlefields, and it’s worth examining what happened there so that hi-tech militaries, such as Israel’s, stay ahead of the game. Hamas, for instance, used drones against Israel on October 7 to attack remote-controlled weapon station towers on the border. Russia was probably watching and learning, and so was Iran.