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An elite Ukrainian drone unit exploits the cover of night to destroy Russian tanks and trucks while their soldiers sleep

Rogue Valley

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An elite Ukrainian drone unit exploits the cover of night to destroy Russian tanks and trucks while their soldiers sleep

iu

3.20.22
An elite Ukrainian drone unit is destroying weaponry of the invading Russian forces as their soldiers sleep, The Times of London reported Friday.Aerorozvidka, a specialist air-reconnaissance unit within the Ukrainian army, says it has destroyed dozens of "priority targets" including tanks, command trucks, and other vehicles in nighttime raids, the paper reported. Russian forces stop moving during the night and typically place their tanks among houses in villages where conventional artillery cannot strike them, Yaroslav Honchar, the unit commander based in Kyiv, told the paper. But the elite drone unit, which has dozens of squads of expert drone pilots, has these stationary vehicles in its cross-hairs. "We strike at night, when Russians sleep," Honchar told the paper. An unnamed Ukrainian soldier told The Times it was "impossible" to see the unit's drones at night. "We look specifically for the most valuable truck in the convoy and then we hit it precisely, and we can do it really well with very low collateral damage," the soldier said. "Even in the villages, it's possible. You can get much closer at night."

The unit's arsenal of drones ranges from cheap commercial ones to heavy-duty octocopters that have been modified to drop anti-tank grenades and to see with thermal cameras, according to the paper. The R18 drone has a 4-kilometer range — about 2½ miles — and its capacity to drop 11-pound bombs is particularly prized by Honchar's drone warriors, the paper said. The team also uses the PD-1, or Punisher drone, developed by Ukraine, that can carry about 6½ pounds of explosives up to 30 miles away. Since Russia began its invasion, Ukrainian forces have had success in using drones such as the highly rated Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2 to destroy the equipment of invading forces, Justin Bronk, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, wrote in The Spectator. The success of the drones "speaks more to the skill of its Ukrainian operators and the incompetence and operational failures of Russian forces," Bronk wrote. Aerorozvidka's drone unit, which flies up to 300 missions a day, according to The Times, operates using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system, which was activated in Ukraine days after Russia invaded.


Keep up the good work mates! (y)
 
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