Enlarge image
Bayraktar TB-2 drone (archive image)
Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Among the numerous weapons used by the Ukrainian military against the invading Russian forces, some have garnered notoriety on social media.
Along with the Javelin anti-tank missiles and the »Ghost of Kyiv«, a Mig-29 pilot of the Ukrainian Air Force, the Bayraktar TB-2 drone has received a symbolic place in Ukraine's defense arsenal.
The TB-2 is a relatively small, medium-altitude drone with a long flight duration.
It weighs about half a ton, can fly at 70 knots (130 km/h) and can carry up to four small laser-guided bombs with a range of about five miles.
Despite its modest size and payload, the TB-2 has gained notoriety in Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and, more recently, Ukraine.
This is because it destroyed numerous armored vehicles and short-range air defense systems.
There are two main ways to prevent drones like the TB-2 from being used against a modern army.
The first is to shoot them down with surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems or fighter jets.
The second is electronic warfare: it allows the radio data link to pilots in a mobile ground control station to be cut off or shut down.
Russian armed forces typically have a large number of short, medium and long-range surface-to-air missile systems – as well as strong electronic warfare capabilities.
One would think, therefore, that Russia should be able to easily neutralize the TB-2 threat.
But that was not the case, and there are several reasons for this.
Russian units stuck in traffic jams
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been marked by a shockingly poor level of coordination between the various elements of the Russian armed forces.
The TB-2's greatest successes came in the first week of the invasion, when Russian units often advanced well beyond the cover normally provided by the accompanying short- and medium-range SAM systems.
Thus, Ukrainian TB-2 operators even managed to ambush and destroy several anti-aircraft and SAM units because they got stuck in traffic jams or at makeshift stands without their radars working.
And they obviously didn't have access to a broader air defense picture either, they weren't warned of the threat from above.
However, once Russian forces began to overcome their initial disorganization on the ground, the threat posed by Russian air defenses increased significantly.
There were high casualty rates in Ukrainian air force attacks on ground targets and low-level reconnaissance flights.
Therefore, the remaining fast Ukrainian jets have been used much less frequently since then.
But what about the TB-2 drones?
Due to their small size, they also have a low radar cross section.
Because they're also relatively slow-moving, some older anti-aircraft radars might struggle to reliably detect and track them — at least if operators don't change their default search modes.
Because they are usually optimized for fast jets or rockets.
That doesn't mean the drones can't be spotted and shot down - several TB-2s have been lost in Libya and Syria and shot down by Russian SAMs in Ukraine.
Nonetheless, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has periodically released footage of TB-2 sorties showing that the drones remain active.
Mobile phones and two-way radios without military-grade encryption
While in many cases it is not verifiable whether a particular strike took place on the claimed date, the Ukrainians undoubtedly still have at least anecdotal success with the drones.
This is not only due to the lack of coordination between the Russian ground forces and the air defense systems that accompany them.
It is also due to the surprising inability of the Russian Air Force to destroy the Ukrainian mobile anti-aircraft systems and establish air superiority.
All of this combined resulted in the inability of Russian fighter jets to shoot down the TB-2 at medium and high altitudes.
And then there is the question of Russian electronic warfare.
In fact, Russian armed forces typically use them extensively to disable enemy sensors, communications, and weapons systems.
This has been observed again and again in Russian operations in Syria and in major exercises.
In Ukraine, however, these systems seem to have been used only to a comparatively small extent so far.
There are probably two main reasons for this.
The first reason: Using jammers to disrupt the enemy without disrupting your own armed forces' systems requires complex planning.
This is precisely the kind of coordination that is currently conspicuously lacking in the Russian ground forces.
The second reason is that the Russian armed forces have major problems with their own communications capabilities in this war: in many cases, the troops have been forced to rely on cell phones and radios with cheap Chinese replacement components - without military-grade encryption.
This has affected Russian combat effectiveness, further weakening morale and exacerbating logistical bottlenecks.
Perhaps that's why the Russian commanders decided they couldn't risk using their usual electronic attack capabilities - and do damage to their own already battered troops in the process.
Psychological influence on the morale and tactics of Russian troops
After nearly three weeks of intense fighting, the Ukrainian Air Force, using its TB-2 drones, has managed to detect and swiftly exploit shortcomings in Russian air defenses and electronic warfare of the Russian Armed Forces.
The number of confirmed attacks so far includes 18 different military vehicles, 24 trucks and two fuel trains.
There are likely a significant number of other attacks where footage has not been released for operational security reasons.
It is quite likely that the threat of drone strikes - an invisible threat - has a major psychological impact on Russian troops' morale and tactics.
However, one must not forget that the TB-2 attacks have great symbolic importance - but only a comparatively small part in the fact that the Russian armed forces have lost more than 1,200 vehicles and heavy weapons so far.
The Bayraktar drone is comparatively cheap, robust and efficient, and performs well - but it's certainly not a silver bullet.
The TB-2's effectiveness to date speaks more to the skills of its Ukrainian operators and to the incompetence and operational failures of the Russian armed forces than to any special capabilities of the drone itself. In the coming weeks, as Russia's air defenses continue to improve and electronic warfare vehicles in near the front lines, their effectiveness is likely to be increasingly limited.
The article first appeared in the British »Spectator«.