Ukraine’s Ambush Drones Step Up Attacks Behind Enemy Lines

New videos released by Ukrainian forces show FPV lurk-and-strike ambush tactics in action. The technique is used behind Russian lines to strike vehicles travelling on supply routes and seems to be used as a way to interdict logistics – and also for targeted assassinations.

This technique may have been adopted as a way to get around the short flight time of FPVs, which typically fly for 20 minutes or less and cannot wait for targets. But it is also a stepping stone to a whole new type of warfare.

Lurk And Strike

These tactics highlighted a couple of months ago by a Ukrainian handbook warning of Russian tactics which was shared on Russian social media. Now we are seeing how the tactics are applied by the Ukrainians.

The first video shows a series of strikes on a small ATV buggy, likely one of the Chinese-supplied Desertcross 1000-3 which Russia is increasingly using due to the lack of military vehicles.

The ambush FPV is parked in the snow by the side of the road, facing the traffic with its rotors off. The operator watches the ATV passes, and at 0:04 the video cuts to a few seconds later when the FPV is in the air and pursuing the ATV. It flies ahead of the ATV then doubles back to fly at the windscreen.

At 0:12 the video cut to the view from a reconnaissance drone observing the strike. The ATV keeps moving after the explosion but veers off into a line of trees.

The video cuts again to the view from a second FPV approaching the crashed vehicle which has some charring from the blast but little obvious damage. There is no sign of the driver. The second FPV flies into the FPV.

We then get the view from a third FPV which confirms that the ATV is now a burning wreck and the video ends. The operator of the third FPV may have gone looking for the driver (given the amount of snow on the ground they could probably follow his tracks) but that is not shown.

What is clear from this is that all three FPVs were in the ambush area, and the operators found it worthwhile to expend three on a low-value target which was not carrying passengers or cargo. In Russia the Desertcross costs around $23,000; the FPVs are around $500 each but availability rather than cost would likely be the deciding factor. Nobody wastes ammo when it is scarce, however cheap it might be.

Truck Strikes

The second video shows three attacks on Russian supply trucks. For the first two the FPVs are waiting in long grass. When a vehicle appears, the rotors start up and an ARMED indicator appears on the screen. Then the video cuts to the pursuit, and the text BOMB ARMED appears (suggesting there may be a two-stage arming process).

In the third, the drone is by the side of the road and takes off and flies down the road (video speeded up) until it finds the target. Either the target had passed by some time previously and the FPV operator waited for some reason, or they were alerted by a reconnaissance drone operator,

In all three the FPV operator attacks the vehicle from behind, and all three seem to aim for the rear of the cab – most likely the driver is the target as the small warhead on the FPV will not stop the truck otherwise.

Targeted Killing

The third video is of the targeting killing of Sergey Melnikov, chief of staff of Russia’s Storm Ossetia battalion in Zaporizhzhya. The GUR — Ukraine’s military intelligence — obtained details of Melnikov’s route and schedule and planned the ambush in advance.

The video shows an FPV passing Melnikov’s car and doubling back, aiming at the windshield, as in the attack on the ATV above. The driver swerves off the road, and the car rolls. The FPV loops around again and hits the car. The result is not shown, but the GUR confirmed that Melnikov and his driver were both killed.

We do not know whether the drone was beside the road before the attack, but the tactics and setup are so similar to the others that this seems highly likely.

Beyond Mine Warfare

These perch-and-wait ambushes are interesting for what they do not show as much as for what they do.

There is no indication how the drones reached their ambush spots. Battery life is the big issue; the drones might have flown there under their own power and counted on having enough juice left for the waiting period and the ambush. But they may have been delivered by drone. Wild Hornets Queen Hornet has been shown delivering FPVs and acting as a flying relay station to increase control range. And when British PM Keir Starmer visited Ukraine recently, he was shown two FPV carriers, one a fixed-wing drone, the other a large multicopter.

Ukrainian forces are increasingly using drones to lay anti-tank mines on roads behind Russian lines. Mines are relatively easy to remove; drones which may be some distance from the road and can be relocated (or target anyone attempting to remove them) may be more challenging.

Laying ambush drones is one step towards the HellHive concept pioneered by U.S. company VRR: boxes containing multiple FPV drones are pre-positioned days or weeks ahead of times and activated as needed. The FPVs can be virtually autonomous; all they need is a reconnaissance drone operator to designate targets and set them loose.

Given a suitable carrier drone ambush drones could go anywhere. Ukraine’s Lyutyi (“Fierce”) drones have a range of over 1,000 miles. Rather than explosives, they could scatter a payload of FPVs around an airbase, to lurk and hamper operations for days. In other settings ambush drones could perch on suitable vantage points and pick out high value targets, outdoors or inside buildings. Left around a command bunker they could make any entry or exit dangerous.

As the videos show, ambush drones are getting started. Where they will end is another matter.