How FPV & Kamikaze Drones Are Reshaping the Russia-Ukraine War

Drones are reshaping the battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine war, revolutionizing surveillance, combat tactics, and logistics. In this episode of "At the Boundary," guest Sam Bendett from the Center for Naval Analyses to explore how unmanned systems—from FPV and kamikaze drones to USVs—are increasing battlefield transparency and forcing rapid tactical evolution.

As drones become integral to modern warfare, their adaptability is outpacing traditional military acquisition cycles. How are nations countering these threats, and what does this mean for the future of conflict? This discussion dives into the technological race shaping the next era of warfare.

Links from the episode:

• GNSI Tampa Summit 5: “The Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons for Future Conflicts” Registration Link

• “Keeping Allies in the Fight: Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq” Decision Brief

• “Should Congress Designate Mexican Cartels as Terrorists?” Decision Brief

• “Critical Resources for National Security” Decision Brief 

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Tad Schnaufer: 0:00

Pat. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm tat schnaufer, your host for at the boundary today, filling in for the usual host, Jim Cardoso, we have an excellent discussion lined up for the podcast today. Sam bendit, a researcher and advisor at the Center for naval analysis, who specializes in Russia, will be our special guest, having spent a lot of time in the region, especially Ukraine, I really look forward to our discussion with him today. A couple notes before we bring Sam into the studio, we've published three new decision briefs recently. They're all quick reads, diving into some very important topics that are dominating the headlines. The first brief is focused on critical natural resources. As tensions and competition escalate around the globe. Will the United States and its allies have access to those critical resources? And if not, how can we ensure access to them? This brief explores it all. We also examine the importance of allies and partnerships around the world. Many experts conclude that the asymmetric advantage of the United States long held over its adversaries as its global network of allies and partnerships. Is that still true today? The brief discusses this, and finally, we tackle the controversial issues surrounding the branding of Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations by the United States Congress. It may seem like an open and shut question, but is it really our brief will fill you in all of these decision briefs are available now on our website, where I'll drop the link down in our show notes. We're just a couple of weeks away from the Tampa summit number five. We'd love to have you join us for the conference, which is titled The Russia, Ukraine war lessons for future conflicts. It's scheduled for March 4 and fifth at the Marshall Student Center here at the Tampa campus of USF. It's free to attend, but registration is required. We'll drop the link for register in the show notes. Speaking of the Russia Ukraine war, it's our time to welcome our special guest, Sam bended. He'll also be appearing at the Tampa summit number five, speaking at a round table discussion focused on technology and conflict on day one. Sam is a researcher and advisor at the Center for naval analysis, with his work focused on Russian defense and technology developments, while also studying the country's uncrewed robotic and autonomous military systems. He's an adjunct senior fellow for the center of New American Security previously, he was part of the National Defense University. Additionally, he's an honorary mad scientist. With the mad scientist initiative of the US Army Training and Doctor of command, we're always excited to have mad scientists on the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Sam. Thank you very much. Glad to be here absolutely so you know, we're going to talk about drones today and how it's affected the battlefield in Ukraine. What's it mean for future conflicts, and just looking at the production side of things. Just last October, President Zelensky was had announced that Ukraine was capable of manufacturing up to 4 million drones annually, just a massive production increase over the course of this war. And likely Russia is producing drones at, you know, nearly the same pace. What does this? What does this look like? How drones changed the battlescape? Sam, well, I think the simplest explanation the one that's that's been

Sam Bendett: 3:25

in discussions over the past three years, is the increasing transparency of the battle space in general, with so many UAVs in the air looking down, trying to monitor every square kilometer of this Combat, most of the battlefield, in fact, can be observed. And what has happened since the start of the war is that it has become increasingly difficult, and in many ways nearly impossible, to mass your forces in any large number, because any vehicle, any any personnel, any soldier that is observed on the battlefield or moves on the battlefield will be tracked and ultimately will be attacked by a UAV, most likely an FPV drone. So massing your forces in large formations is cost prohibitive and almost always results in losses. And Russia launched several minor assaults recently, even this week with several tanks or several armored personnel carriers, and that small grouping of forces was observed by Ukrainians, attacked and essentially dismantled. So it is difficult to conduct these type of operations, and of course, it prompted an emergence of tactics and concepts to deal with the ubiquity of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones overhead and tactical attack drones that can essentially strike within the depth of the entire battlefield,

Tad Schnaufer: 4:52

right? So it sounds like this is even changing, you know, because there's a big question, are drones a revolution in warfare? Are they more just an evolution of warfare? War, but if you're talking about limiting the ability to mass forces, you're really getting at diminishing one of the key principles of warfare, which is mass being able to conduct a large scale attack. So is it? Is this proliferation of drones? Is this becoming more beyond the tactical implications? Is it more strategic implications? Or is this really just on the battlefield?

Sam Bendett: 5:22

Well, I think the impact of drones is evolutionary, simply because while it makes it very dangerous for infantry and ground forces and mechanized infantry to operate, it doesn't cancel them out. They're still needed to capture and hold the territory. So drones can do a lot of damage against the adversary, but it still takes ground forces to go in and actually hold it. So in many ways, the warfare in Ukraine remained the same as it was before, and in many ways it now resembles World War Two, or even World War One warfare, with Russia launching mass scale infantry attacks against the Ukrainian forces. But we also have to consider to what extent the war in Ukraine is a unique conflict versus a conflict that is going to impact many, many other conflicts. And so we are seeing, for example, drones proliferate to other parts of the world, to other combat zones. So from Syria to Israel, Hezbollah Gaza to Myanmar to Sudan to Iran to Mexican cartels and possibly other actors, we see adaptation of some of the principles of drone warfare, adaptation of technologies, concepts and tactics in some form or another. But again, ultimately, warfare is about holding the territory right. And so UAE is robotic systems, no matter how advanced they can, in fact, do a lot of damage. They cannot hold territory, and that requires infantry, ground forces, regular soldiers, to go in and do what they've done for centuries before. Sure,

Tad Schnaufer: 7:06

sure. So the fundamentals are still there, but the tactics seem to be changing as you have to deal with these overhead threats from drones. What has that looked like? You know, speaking of massing, how have tax over the past couple of years been able to manifest themselves without being seen by drones. I'm thinking of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk province. How were they able to mass forces without being seen in advance?

Sam Bendett: 7:31

So this required a lot of preparation on the part of the Ukrainians to go after Russian ISR assets, to go after Russian intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. This was accomplished by launching UAVs that intercepted and took down a lot of Russian observation drones. This was also accomplished in no small part, by electronic warfare, jamming of drone operating frequencies as well as communication frequencies by soldiers and units on the ground. On the Russian side, Ukrainians conducted a lot of intelligence, and have identified a specific section of the front, or rather the border in the Kursk region, where Russian soldiers were not as well prepared and not as well equipped as soldiers at other section of the border, and certainly not as well equipped as The soldiers fighting Ukrainians in eastern part of the country, so they were able to kind of bring it all together right to go after ISR assets to conduct electronic warfare, jamming and degrade Russian communications, as well as take advantage of the fact that a lot of soldiers on the Russian side actually lacked combat experience, and so Ukraine gathered experienced forces, and once it conducted those tactics, it was able to create a gap, and it poured into that gap, into the Russian territory,

Tad Schnaufer: 8:53

right? So it sounds like surprise and speed are still one of the key elements to get around. You know, the use of drones, particularly that is our capability. That's correct, yes. What are some of the other uses we're seeing? Let's stick on aerial drones for the moment. What are some other uses of aerial drones have we seen adapted since the war began? So obviously you have surveillance, you have being able to observe enemy movements and enemy positions. But what else have these drones been able to allow the Russians and the Ukrainians to do, and how has that changed since the war started?

Sam Bendett: 9:25

Given a wide variety of UAVs operating fixed wing, short and long range drones, fixed wing, Kamikaze, one way attack drones, quadcopter logistics, supply and combat UAVs, multi rotor, heavy drones that can also conduct military missions and other missions. And other missions we're seeing uh, UAVs, uh, essentially perform signal repeater roles where they can extend the operating signal by care and communications equipment on board, so that FPV drones and short range drones can operate farther. And this can be accomplished by uh. Drones operating on their own as signal repeaters, or, for example, heavier drones carrying short range drones with them as an aircraft carrier, releasing them and then acting as a signal repeater. We've seen UAVs, especially quadcopters and heavy multi rotors, act as mining, where they can drop mines on roads and locations in advance of the adversarial forces, or where adversarial forces are concentrated, we've seen drones actually perform logistics and supply roles, probably with increasing capacity as resupply by any type of vehicle is increasingly dangerous for both sides. They're now resorting to heavy or mid range quadcopters and multi rotors actually delivering ammunition, food, water and medicine.

Tad Schnaufer: 10:50

Well, I mean, that's a pretty extensive use of drones. I mean, do we see drones in the air, or even a land and sea? Are they? We know you'd mentioned that the infantry, you obviously have to hold ground, but are drones able to replace soldiers and maybe other jobs during the course of the war. So whether we're talking about logistics or surveillance,

Sam Bendett: 11:08

well, obviously, years ago, if you needed to conduct surveillance, you would send a foot soldier, or you would try to send a light helicopter or light aircraft. To do that, United States and just a handful of other countries had more advanced capabilities where they could send an expensive drone to conduct those reconnaissance missions, but those were expensive UAVs, and the missions were limited to just very high priority targets. Now with the ubiquity of commercial type quadcopters, which are either purchased from China or assembled from mostly Chinese components, although both sides are now manufacturing these quadcopters with the increasing share of domestic components. Now you can just launch a light quadcopter right that can go just several miles out, surveil the territory and deliver information real time. That has really had a massive impact, where you could be very precise with your artillery strikes, motor strike, motor strikes, tank strikes and other type of attacks by surveilling and identifying the target in real time while your forces are actually held back, while your soldiers are held back. So this is has had a very significant impact on how forces are operating and how they're structuring their tactics,

Tad Schnaufer: 12:31

sure, but in the end, you still have, as they say, a human in the loop, right? So you're still having humans, you know, drive some of these drones, and you still need them to be somewhere, whether they're in a bunker or something like that, to patrol them. So it's not necessarily affecting, I guess, the overall manpower issues that the either side might be facing. That's

Sam Bendett: 12:51

correct. In fact, most of the drones that you see operating, most of the videos from UAVs that you now see on social media, on Twitter and telegram and other platforms, they actually come from not just a single individual, but from a groups, from a group of individuals. So for an FPV drone to conduct a strike, you need an FPV pilot. You also need an overhead ISR drone to surveil the territory and lead that FPV to target and provide additional information back to the drone unit, and of course, FPV pilot is just going to be busy piloting the drone. So you need a commander. You need someone who can actually take the information from a reconnaissance quadcopter and actually combine that with the data that is seen and received by an FPV operator. And then also, occasionally, you need an additional individual who would be a munitions expert, someone who would be able to attach munitions or even conduct repair for either an FPV drone or a quadcopter. You also sometimes need a driver to take the drone crew in and out of combat. So we're talking anywhere between two to five people permission. So this is still very much manpower intensive operation, but that is what can assure the precision, because you have multiple eyes in the air, literally with an FPD pilot flying to target, with a reconnaissance drone overhead providing Overwatch, and other people actually trying to combine all that information for a precise strike. Could you

Tad Schnaufer: 14:26

explain a little bit more detail what FPV is for the our audience?

Sam Bendett: 14:30

So three years into the war, FPV has become the weapon of choice. FPV drone is a first person view. It's a racing drone. It's a commercial drone which was built for racing in a commercial setting, and it was very quickly adapted to carry munitions, such as an RPG warhead, for example, an explosive directly at Target. So what it basically does is that it turns a pilot into a flying bullet. Yeah. Or a flying explosive so FPV drones are highly maneuverable. You can strike a very precise location on the target. You can go up, you can go left, right, you can circle, you can come back for another run. So it makes it a very versatile tactical weapon in the in the beginning of the conflict, FPV drones at a short range, probably no more than three to five kilometers. There are now models on both sides which fly farther and with a signal repeater, those drones can potentially strike 1015, kilometers behind the line of contact. So an FPV drone is mostly assembled from commercial components, and both sides are still assembling these in large quantities from components they can get from China. So essentially, the bulk of the millions of UAVs flying on both sides are sourced from China, and are still sourced from China. And in the sense that it is cheap to acquire these components in very large quantities, and that's exactly what Russians and Ukrainians are doing. And I said earlier, they're claiming to increase the substitution of these components with the domestic parts, and that's happening slowly but surely still. However, the reliance on these imported components is relatively high, which is why, again, both sides can claim to field such enormous numbers of UAVs a year well.

Tad Schnaufer: 16:28

And with that in mind, you know, talking about again, the beginning of the war in February 22 until now, how has drone types, you know, lost their usefulness or effectiveness? As this kind of technology cycle goes a new drone comes into play, you know, whether we're talking about kamikaze drones and then air defenses are, you know, technology advances enough to, you know, make them, in a sense, obsolete, and then you have a new set of drones that come in later. Can you go through briefly, kind of what that cycle looks like in, in this case,

Sam Bendett: 16:53

well, it's a proverbial sword versus shield fight. As soon as the sword becomes more advanced and sharper, the shield becomes more powerful, and in turn, the sword becomes and the shield and so on and so forth. So the rapid development and fielding of different types of UAVs in the war also led to the rapid development of countermeasures, and these are electronic warfare countermeasures, jamming of drone operating frequencies and command and control signals. As that happened, drones started operating at different frequencies, and as soon as that happened, electronic warfare systems had to be adjusted and built for those type of frequencies. So now you have electronic warfare systems that can operate on multiple frequency bands to go after a variety of operating frequencies for UAVs, you now have frequency analyzers as well as drone detectors. Some of these technologies are more sophisticated. Frequency analyzer can actually analyze the frequency band of a drone overhead so you can determine exactly what it is and whether it's friendly or not, and the drone, a detector, will simply tell you that there's a drone in your immediate vicinity, so that you can take appropriate measures. A lot of these technologies are also commercial, or have commercial origins, and have flooded the combat and so now both sides are manufacturing these type of detectors and jammers in very large quantities. And this work essentially gave birth to a tactical ew complex, tactical electronic warfare complex called trench electronic warfare, which is the which is the term that's used a lot these days. There's been a push towards physical protection of weapons systems, locations soldiers, trenches and dugouts with nets and other mechanisms. And again, these evolve as the threat evolves as well. There's been a push for the kinetic destruction of UAVs, if nothing else works, and that's why you have soldiers on both sides training to shoot down these tactical drones with shotguns and rifles, pump action rifles and and and other types of systems. These, of course, are tactical short range drones. We're not even talking about long range UAVs, the ones that are used by both sides. But again, at the tactical level, there's been a lot of developments leading to how to take down these drones and then how to operate. So there's lots of instructions which are public and are released on a regular basis by both sides of what soldiers should and should not be doing if they are in a trench, if they are in a dugout, how they should be moving on foot, how they should be moving in a vehicle, what to do if you cited a drone, how to hide, how to run, how to take it down. So this type of evolution is probably daily, and you. Drone technology can can become obsolete and stale within a couple of months, so you have to iterate very, very quickly, and that's why both sides are racing against each other and probably one of the largest technology races in war, probably since the end of the Cold War. And this involves not just the military institutions or military companies and defense industrial enterprises, but it also involves a massive share of of the civilian society as well, with lots of volunteers and technical startups which rose to prominence over the past three years, and number and in the many hundreds now on both sides, which manufacture and assemble UAVs, kind of UAV systems, and anything else that's needed for the front

Tad Schnaufer: 20:55

right? Because we've seen an explosion of use of just basic civilian drones you can buy off the shelf that have been modified for the war, whether if it includes an extra camera or the ability, as mentioned, the drop of mine, or a grenade on a tank, or something like that. So we're seeing these civilian quad copters that, you know, you might have at home also being used, you know, modified, obviously, for the war,

Sam Bendett: 21:17

right? And so this started on both sides, with volunteers bringing to the soldiers the types of supplies that the soldiers lack. And so when we talk about drones, obviously the number one gap identified at the tactical level, once the war became stationary and attritional was the lack of that tactical UAV, something that can be easily operated, uh, easily used, easily lost and quickly replaced, uh, up to a range of, let's say, five to 10 kilometers. This is why, in 2022 we've seen an explosion of in the use rather of Chinese made DGI Mavic series, right? And these are civilian quad copters built for civilian applications. They're easy to learn, they're easy to maintain, they're just easy to fly right out of the box. And so that's why, in 2022 commercial quadcopters basically gave other weapons the precision they lacked in this war. And then DGI Mavic series quad copters still remain the weapon of choice for both sides, and even as Russia and Ukraine are claiming that they're now manufacturing domestic quad copters that can substitute a DJI Mavic that's still probably a long shot, considering how ubiquitous, cheap and easy DJI mavics really are. And then moving into 2023 and 24 we see the rise of FPV drones, one way, kamikaze drones, which were manufactured in increasing quantities, from 1000s a month to 10s of 1000s, to now hundreds of 1000s per month. And with that, we saw the rise of other similar type of drones, for example, fixed wing aircraft type kamikaze UAVs, which also fly short distances between five to 20 kilometers. And a lot of these were assembled by commercial enterprises, by startups, even by individuals, literally in their garage or in their kitchen or on their balcony. The problem, of course, with that is that you don't have a standard. You have a different quality of assembly, different quality of manufacturing. And a lot of soldiers and operators complain that a lot of these UAVs actually didn't work as intended when they were delivered to the front. So this prompted both militaries and both governments to institute checks and balances and organizations that would be able to facilitate the quality check, the quality control and official testing and evaluation of these technologies. And so Ukraine has a brave one platform, which has been very efficient and very effective in giving the opportunity for lots and lots of Ukrainian private sector developers to showcase their technology for Ukrainian military and for the Ukrainian military to test that technology and either accept it for mass scale application or rejected for further improvements. Russia was behind that curve, but it also established these type of accelerators and platforms where these type of commercial techs could be used alongside with and overlap with military grade technologies.

Tad Schnaufer: 24:37

And with that in mind, with with the drones continuing to expand. As you said, over the period of the war, have we seen, you know, quote, unquote, drones swarms attacking targets, whether they're civilian based quad copters or these more fixed wing crafts. Are we seeing these large number drone attacks, or is it's primarily just the more observation and smaller scale drone usage?

Sam Bendett: 25:00

We're starting to see more and more groups used by especially by Ukrainians and Russians. Can play this complaint as far back as 2023 that Ukrainians were flying their UAVs in groups with a heavy drone accompanied by smaller drones made by an overhead ISR drone. So anywhere between five, six to 10 or even more of those UAVs, but those are all human piloted. Those are all Remote Piloted. So you don't actually have an intelligent swarm that we have been theorizing for years at this point, and even since the beginning of the war, there were hints that the growing number of UAVs will ultimately be assembled into swarms. It's not as technologically feasible, and is not as easy as originally intended. And so humans are very much in the loop. And so for every grouping of UAVs which are operating, you have at least several operators and accompanying personnel making sure that this grouping can fly. Ultimately, of course, with the advance of commercial technologies and military technologies used in the war, both sides are starting to claim that in the near future, they can actually field a swarm right over you at ease, that would be able to operate more or less independently, and have the human on the loop, not firmly in The Loop. But again, that's technologically difficult in a in the Ukrainian battle space that steaming with so many countermeasures, right? But last, I believe, last December, November, Ukraine claimed that a 2025, would be the year of an actual emergence of a swar, right? And so we will see how far Ukraine will go. And of course, Russians are copying Ukrainian tactics. Sometimes they're trying to get ahead of the Ukrainian tactics, but they will do so as well. I should have mentioned earlier, when we were talking about the types of UAVs used the new type that made its appearance, of course, by the Russians as the first movers in the space was the fiber optic controlled UAV, and that's a new development where all the command and control and video is essentially delivered by a fiber optic cable that unspools behind the drone as it flies, and so that negates electronic warfare jamming countermeasures, and prompts both sides, which are now fielding these drones to come up with new ways to defend themselves against a drone that cannot be jammed. And so Russians started using these fiber optic UAVs against the Ukrainians in Kursk Region. They're they're using more and more of these UAVs. Now, Ukrainians are also manufacturing a large number of these fiber optic drones and extending the range of those UAVs, where you go from a fiber optic spool of five to 10 kilometers at the beginning, now up to 40

Tad Schnaufer: 27:48

kilometers. That's a lot of coil there. That's a lot of coil, and

Sam Bendett: 27:53

there's a lot of coil on the on the battlefield. Now, there's videos emerging from the Russians, which basically show a field, and it's, it's almost like, it's almost like it's covered in spider webs, which is, and these are fiber optic coils going back and forth. So that creates its own set of challenges for the defenders and the attackers. Well, it's fascinating

Tad Schnaufer: 28:15

to see how that technology evolves, and you would think that it would continually go remote, but it's interesting to see wires connected back to the drones. You think it kind of go the other way with way, where they become more autonomous, but because of the jamming capabilities, they're having to go straight back to landlines. Well,

Sam Bendett: 28:31

there's still a lot of development on autonomous UAVs. There's limited autonomy in play with a target lock and target recognition for a drone, where operator identifies the target, and then the drone locks on that target and flies there without communicating with the operator, and is therefore also impervious to electronic warfare at that section of its flight. There's still a lot of development in that direction, but as true autonomy was lacking and swarms were probably far away, both sides switch to more practical applications of UAVs, and that's why we have a fiber optic drone, which could also be assembled relatively cheaply and also with components that could be sourced from China. A I think, a 10 kilometer fiber optic spool that you can buy in Aliexpress costs about $130 okay, so once again, you can augment your existing FPV drone or quadcopter to become a fiber optic UAV relatively quickly and relatively cheaply.

Tad Schnaufer: 29:33

And with that in mind and looking we've been speaking a lot about the aerial versions of drones, but just to take a quick turn to going back to land and then sea drones as well, which have played a large part in the conflict, maybe not as large as the aerial drones, but certainly have played a role. So if we're looking at the Black Sea and what the Ukrainians have been able to do with their drones at sea, what are the big implications you see there?

Sam Bendett: 29:58

Well, Ukrainians were definitely. First movers, and had the enormous advantage in launching their land surface vessels against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This was a tactic that the Russians simply were not ready for, were not prepared for, and took a long time to adjust to. In the meantime, Ukraine launched several generations of usvs against, excuse me, again, built with commercial components, with Starlink communication system as the focal point of those usvs, to maintain communication over hundreds of kilometers. And those were coming out usvs, which would essentially explode at Target. And we've seen and witnessed the evolution of those drones, going from one way attack to now carriers of different types of weapons and systems. And so those drones can carry fpvs to attack Russian targets. They now carry short range air missiles to attack and destroy Russian helicopters. And there are other weapons that could be installed on those usvs against you again, Ukrainians were the first movers. They damaged and sunk a number of Russian ships in port and at sea, and that prompted Russians to field a number of countermeasures. And probably the more effective one, until that helicopter was shut down, was Russian Navy launching helicopters against those usvs, to identify and destroy them, and even though Russia probably interdicts a large share of those usvs, those that actually make it through have an enormous impact on the state of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and on their morale. Russians are copying some of those USV designs. They're designing their own and building their own also as one way attack drones or carriers of other weapons and systems as ISR components to look for and scour the Black Sea for the appearance of the Ukrainian usvs to communicate this threat back to the Black Sea Fleet and to shore. Russians are conducting FPV training across all fleets so that soldiers would be and navy personnel would be able to fly these drones At short distances to target and destroy Ukrainian usvs. The USV piloting courses are now appearing in Russian fleets, as well as a way to absorb lessons from this war for further applications. But again, Ukrainians were first to utilize this weapon, and they showed the world that it doesn't take a lot of money and it doesn't take a lot of technology to feel the system that can threaten a what is arguably one of the largest navies in the world, and make it essentially ineffective,

Tad Schnaufer: 32:46

yeah, and cost, it's a very cost effective way to, uh, sink major ships as well. Exactly, exactly. So have we seen, uh, a number of drone against drone countermeasures in this case, or also in the aerial field, where you just have drones that are actually going out seeking other drones to destroy absolutely

Sam Bendett: 33:05

we've seen Ukraine utilize FPV type interceptors against Russian ISR fixed wing drones, and so they again did that as a way to degrade Russian surveillance capabilities and use this tactic very effectively against Russian forces in the Kursk, as we've mentioned earlier, again, Ukrainians were the first movers in this space. And because Russian observation UAVs fly relatively slow such as the orlon, the Zala, the SuperCam series, they can become easy targets for fast moving FTP drones. Russians began installing localized ew systems and warning systems on their UAVs to warn the operator that a drone may be approaching. And we're sort of seeing how that is playing out technologically, but it doesn't seem to have a lot of effect against Ukrainian UAVs. So Ukrainian interceptors are giving sort of an impetus for the Russian forces to change their operating tactics with surveillance and reconnaissance. Russians are using their drones as interceptors as well against Ukrainian larger, heavier UAVs, like the multi rotor heavy drones, which Russian stuff Baba Yaga after a an ogres and a witch from the folktales, Slavic folktales, because those type of UAVs attack at night and cause a lot of damage and havoc and stress for the Russian military. So they're using drones with thermal imagers to go after Ukrainian slow flying bombing drones as well. So again, we are seeing a very quick and fast adoption of tactics, principles and concepts, which became successful from one side. And

Tad Schnaufer: 34:48

then, you know, seeing this adaptation on an air and at sea. What are we looking at on land? You know, we've seen the kind of drones that can carry, obviously, equipment for soldiers so they don't have to carry it. We've seen drones. On land that can do de mining operations, so they can go out and clear a field of mines without risking, obviously, the life of the operator. And then we've seen drones, you know, in the news with a, you know, AK 47 mounted on top of it. How are we seeing land drones used here?

Sam Bendett: 35:14

So land drones are following sort of the same evolutionary concept as aerial drones, as as FTV drones, especially as movement in this battle space is becoming increasingly difficult. As supply and evacuation runs and missions are becoming more dangerous for food soldiers, as well as for any mechanized vehicle or any vehicle. For that matter, both sides are building light UGV platforms probably no bigger than your regular love seat or a couch. Usually it's tracked. Some of them are wheeled to act in or rather perform surveillance or evacuation or supply or similar type of mission, we're seeing fewer of those in combat, simply because as soon as a drone like that engages, engages their targets, essentially, it could be attacked, and is almost always attacked and destroyed by aerial drones. But because Ukraine in front is very large, it's not always possible for observation UAVs to monitor the entire battle space. And so soldiers are building, or are using those type of light tactical UGVs, built by startups and volunteer communities and private sector and even the military for logistics and resupply and evacuation runs. And so this is done at short distances. These are also remote controlled. UAVs, excuse me, UGVs on manground vehicles, some of them are now also fiber optic controlled to again negate adversarial jamming, so that they could go for up to several kilometers and perform a mission that would be very dangerous to do for a regular food soldier, or even a food soldier in a protected vehicle? Yeah,

Tad Schnaufer: 37:05

I've even seen videos of them, I guess, prototyping drones that could ground, drones that could drive out and pick up like a wounded soldier and drag them back to the safety of friendly lines. Right,

Sam Bendett: 37:18

right. And of course, the safety of the soldier who is evacuated this way is also dependent on whether or not this entire operation is observed by an adversarial Right.

Tad Schnaufer: 37:28

Absolutely. So we're seeing that advancement of drones across the domains of air, sea and on land. What you know? What can we learn from the current conflict in Ukraine, and what can we see going forward in other conflicts, as you mentioned the beginning of our talk around the world, how do we see drones playing roles there?

Sam Bendett: 37:49

We witness in Ukraine a very rapid adaptation of new technologies and new tactics. We witness a very rapid adaptation of commercial type of technologies. And of course, the commercial sector can move very quickly in developing something new, something relevant, it can move much faster than a large defense industrial enterprise. And this is probably true the world over, not just in Russia, Ukraine, conflict. So the question arises, how quickly can militaries around the world absorb these solutions? How quickly they can acquire and so the question of the the entire research development, testing, evaluation and acquisition cycle, which used to take place over the course of years and sometimes even decades, prior to this specific conflict, now it is shrinking. It is shrinking, by necessity, to less than a year to a few months, to even a few weeks. So that's probably major lesson, and this is something that United States military and US allies are actively discussing and debating how quickly they can reform their acquisition to take advantage of new technologies and new salute and new solutions that already exist. Obviously, there's a huge impact on surveillance and reconnaissance and how forces can operate reconstitute themselves in an environment where they could be observed by lots of different types of UAVs. There's a lot of issues related to the counter UAV tactics and concepts, which include electronic warfare and similar countermeasures. What is required for modern forces to have in their arsenal to defend against these UAVs? And of course, there's a there are a lot of questions about training, training of operators, training of people to support these type of tactical drone units. What is required to do that, and how can forces best train with available technologies so that they can operate in that increasingly busy battle space? Finally, it's the impact of numbers. Now, any military force, any military formation or any force out there, whether it's military or paramilitary or um. It could be an organized crime group or even empowered individuals have they can all have access to the technology that's used in Ukraine right now, simply because manuals on how to do and assemble those UAVs, how to manufacture them, are all over the internet right now. So you can take a few hours to learn. You can take several days, after several weeks to learn how to solder and assemble and manufacture these drones, but ultimately, in a relatively short amount of time, you can have a functioning quad copter or even a fixed wing light UAV. You can also buy these commercially, and you can also adapt them for military applications. And again, the instructions and evidence is out there. And so it doesn't take a lot anymore to build out an actual drone force. So the threshold to entry right for individuals, groups, formations and countries and states to acquiring their own UAV force has been lowered significantly. And so we have to sort of consider how we can operate in an environment where multiple types of actors can have access to this type of technology and impact how United States or NATO or allied forces operate. Well,

Tad Schnaufer: 41:17

it's particularly talking about how they're made, and looking at the West, and even Russia, for example, where, at the time, was getting a lot of its drones from Iran. I'm sure the domestic, domestic production is something on the minds of Western leaders, because, as you mentioned, a lot of the drones come from China currently. So you'd want that supply probably to be more on the domestic front than from overseas,

Sam Bendett: 41:39

right? And so both sides in the war in Ukraine are claiming an increasing share of import substitution. They're claiming that they're manufacturing drones to substitute Chinese made UAVs to lessen the dependence on components and and Chinese drones in general. Of course, the issue is that China basically corners the commercial drone market. It completely dominates it. You can still acquire these drones easily at any number of online or physical commercial marketplaces. And so again, it would take a determined individual or group of people some time, but they can ultimately learn how to convert their civilian products to military applications. And of course, that also has a huge effect on how established militaries will fight in conventional attack conflicts going further,

Tad Schnaufer: 42:35

absolutely, absolutely. And as we look forward, can we do we see a possibility of an in a sense, as stationary drones, where you just have a bunch of dugouts with machine guns that are remotely operated, for example, holding a front line or something like that, to again decrease the risk to the actual soldier. But having these kind of remote control outposts, absolutely

Sam Bendett: 42:57

and both sides in the war in Ukraine are actually developing such such systems, and this could be the future of some of the tactical warfare where, again, a single soldier or a group of soldiers can operate a range of aerial and ground and if necessary, maritime systems that can be combined in a single sort of networked environment, and can identify targets and relay back the priority of the targets that they have selected for ultimate decision by a human but it is possible, and this is something both sides and other militaries around the world are working on right now. So

Tad Schnaufer: 43:42

yeah, certainly a force multiplier, where eventually you could see where a small group of soldiers could command a plethora of weapons, remote controlling so they're in relative safety in a bunker somewhere or something in remote controlling grounds and air assets. That's correct? Well, that will certainly be interesting play as the war in Ukraine hopefully comes to an end at some point and then in the future of how conflict will be played out, whether that's in the Indo Pacific or somewhere else. Which one other thing to note is the range of drones. So we would just know that we were noting about different drone types in the Ukraine war, other conflicts, such as maybe one over Taiwan, would be much different. Be just because of the ranges. It'd be harder to use those civilian drones if, if I'm not mistaken, in a long scale, you know, if you're talking hundreds of miles that you have to cover to get to the actual fighting,

Sam Bendett: 44:33

right? And that's why, when it comes to long range, UAVs, Russian and Ukrainian manufacturers and developers are building military grade drones, one way attack drones, mostly coming from the military industrial sector, but also relying on commercial components in one form or another. And so that's how Russia is fielding Iranian. UAVs that they have rebuilt into a domestic version called Get on. And Ukrainians are using probably at least a dozen at this point, long range UAVs, one way attack, UAVs that can go after Russian targets more than 1000 miles from the border. And Ukraine has done it successfully. Has done these attacks quite successfully against Russian energy infrastructure, military infrastructure, and even civilian infrastructure. And of course, Russia always responds with the launches of these Geron loitering munitions against Ukrainian targets. Also able to strike essentially targets across the entire Ukrainian territory.

Tad Schnaufer: 45:49

Very interesting. And just to wrap up today, the final question, kind of a two parter, if you're just a normal infantry soldier, what's the biggest pro for the advancement of drones, as you see it right now and then? What's the biggest calm what should an infantry soldier, you know, fear from the advancement of drones as we continue to see this war evolve.

Sam Bendett: 46:09

So an infantry soldier should fear the appearance of a tactical UAV overhead. And sometimes those UAVs can sneak past all manner of defenses. And that's where you have videos right now of Russian soldiers trying to hide from the angry noise of an FPV drone circling overhead, sort of that very, very angry bee that ultimately has a deadly sting, creating this new form of PTSD, where as soon as you hear this noise, you need to take appropriate evasive measures, whether that UAV is a as a is an enemy drone or even a friendly UAV, as far as pros, for infantry soldiers, they can carry A number of technologies that can enable them to identify drones in flight and take appropriate measures. And so there's a a rapid evolution of tactics and technologies to enable an individual warfighter to withstand drone attacks and to mitigate the drone presence, but these technologies and tactics have to adapt as quickly as the adversarial drones are evolving, and so it's a constant race which creates not just enormous technological pressure, but also has a massive emotional impact. Now you have to look up all the time, and this is something that militaries didn't really have to do in certain types of conflicts. Now, if you're entering any type of conflict, you have to consider whether your opponent is going to field these type of technologies and systems to go after your individual soldiers, groups of soldiers, groups of vehicles, or essentially anything that is military grade or military affiliated.

Tad Schnaufer: 48:04

Well, that sounds like a pretty scary type conflict with so many drones like that and well, thank you, Sam, so much for your input, and we look forward to hearing you speak at our upcoming summit in a couple of weeks here at the USF main campus. Thank you very much. Many. Thanks to our special guest today, Sam bedded a researcher and advisor at the Center for naval analysis, specializing in Russia. We've learned a lot today about the current state of the Russia Ukraine war, as well as what the future may hold in Eastern Europe, especially in terms of technological advancements resulting from the war. If you'd like to hear and see even more of Sam, he'll be part of our round table discussion featured at GNSI Tampa Summit, number five in two weeks. Check out our website for more information. Next week, at at the boundary, we'll continue our conversations about the Russia, Ukraine war. This time, however, we'll bring in four outstanding students from our future strategist programs. Students can bring fresh eyes and ideas to topics, and I'm looking forward to hearing their perspective. That's next week. If you don't want to miss it or any of our other episodes, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be worthy of attention and discussion. I'm tashoffer, your guest host, filling in for Jim Cardoso, thanks again for listening today, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.