As of: January 29, 2024, 5:14 p.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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A screenshot from the drone video shared by the Ukrainian border guard.
Two tanks can be seen in the picture.
© Telegram DPSUkr/X DPSU_ua
Ukraine apparently managed to shoot down two Russian tanks in the Kherson region.
Not with artillery, but with a small drone.
The damage is probably in the millions.
Kherson – In the Ukraine war, Kiev is increasingly relying on drones – and seems to be having success with it.
Drone operators are now said to have apparently succeeded in taking out two Russian tanks near Kherson.
This is not the first time that Ukraine has managed such a blow.
Ukraine war: Kiev's troops apparently manage to score a drone hit on two Russian tanks
Ukrainian drone pilots apparently hit two Russian tanks in the Kherson region.
The Ukrainian state border guard shared a video about this on Saturday (January 27) on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
The first shot shows two presumably Russian tanks and at least one soldier.
The camera perspective then changes several times.
After another cut you can see a bullet hitting a floating tank.
A second hit appears to be on a tank traveling on a road.
“Two tanks were destroyed by border guards together with the defense forces in the Kherson region,” said the border guard's comment on the post.
The information could not be independently verified.
The targets were hit with FPV drones, it said.
FPV stands for First Person View, i.e. the view from the “first person perspective”.
It is the second hit of this kind within a few days: Just on Friday, the Ukrainian National Guard and the Ministry of Defense in Kiev shared a video on X in which a drone took out two tanks at once.
Drones are one of the most important weapons in the Ukraine war - Kiev is increasingly attacking Russia's oil storage facilities
Drones have established themselves as one of the most important weapons in the Ukraine war.
The unmanned aircraft are comparatively cheap, easy to obtain and, through conversion, can be used in both reconnaissance and attack.
Shortly after the start of the Russian invasion, Kiev announced that it was working on a drone army.
The Ukrainian army is partially converting civilian drones to make them usable for military purposes.
Most recently, Kiev has focused on drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, such as oil storage facilities.
This has two advantages: On the one hand, the attacks complicate the supply of fuel to Moscow's troops and thus Russia's military logistics.
Oil storage facilities set on fire are also expected to dry up Putin's war chests.
Oil and gas sales account for around 40 percent of Russian government revenue.
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When attacking military targets in the Russian heartland, Ukrainian drones apparently managed to cover long distances.
A Ukrainian government official told the Interfax
news agency that a domestic drone was used in an attack near St. Petersburg that flew over 1,250 kilometers
.
This could not initially be independently verified.
Ukraine War: Drones “more useful than artillery” for Ukraine, but Russia is catching up
Mykhailo Fedorov, Kyiv's minister of digital transformation, leads Ukraine's drone efforts.
He told Newsweek
magazine
in early December that FPV drones were now more useful to Ukraine's frontline fighters than artillery.
“So PV drones are actually a technical revolution, even if the technology itself is quite simple.
But it has proven to be very efficient.” Given the acute shortage of ammunition in the Ukrainian army, the use of drones can also save rockets and other projectiles.
A drone controlled by an operator.
© imago/Symbolbild
Meanwhile, Russia is also relying on the intensive use of unmanned missiles.
Ukraine now fends off Russian drone attacks almost every night.
Moscow often combines drones with various types of rockets and cruise missiles in its attacks to saturate air defenses.
While Ukraine had a head start in producing FPV drones at the start of the war, Russia appears to be catching up.
Russian FPV development has likely grown "exponentially," Samuel Bendett of the Center for Naval Analyzes think tank told
Newsweek
.