As of: March 10, 2024, 10:11 a.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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Press
Split
A Russian soldier in a military training center in Stavropol aims at a drone (February 2024, symbolic image).
© IMAGO/Denis Abramov / SNA
Ukraine recently apparently came across a bizarre innovation from Moscow: a drone with a ten-kilometer-long fiber optic connection.
The advantages: precise and hard to detect.
Kiev - Ukraine has repeatedly demonstrated ingenuity in its defense against Russia: the Ukrainian military countered the shortage of ammunition by building bombs using a 3D printer or conducting mine reconnaissance using thermal imaging cameras.
Recently, drones have become increasingly important in the Ukraine war.
Ukrainian troops are achieving success with unmanned flying objects or sea drones, some of which they have converted themselves.
But Russia is catching up.
Military observers have now apparently spotted a bizarre innovation from Moscow: a Russian drone with a cable connection.
Ukraine war: Russia is apparently experimenting with cable-connected drones
Ukrainian military blogger Serhiy Flesh reported on an extraordinary find on his Telegram channel on Thursday (March 7).
It was something “we have never seen before,” said the blogger.
The discovery: A Russian drone that was controlled via a cable connection.
To do this, a coil of fiber optic cable over ten kilometers long was unrolled in the air, Flesh reported.
Something he had not previously thought would be “realistic […] without tearing the fiber.”
The advantage of this technology: The unmanned aircraft cannot be stopped by electronic warfare such as jammers.
Since the drone does not have a radio connection, it is more difficult to detect itself.
This protects the aircraft itself, but also the pilot.
“And the image can be transmitted in the highest quality,” added the Ukrainian military blogger.
The attacks can be carried out with corresponding precision.
Drone revolution?
Wired drone handed over to Ukrainian specialists
Flesh shared the images of the wired drone on Telegram, which shortly afterwards also circulated on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
You can see the rather makeshift attachment of ammunition with adhesive tape.
“It is a commercially available quadcopter with a warhead that was originally intended for an RPG-7 rocket launcher,” the Ukrainian military experts from
Militarnyi
analyzed the footage.
The authenticity of the images shared by Flesh could not initially be independently verified, and the location or exact time of discovery was also unclear.
According to his own information, the military blogger handed the cabled drone over to the Ukrainian drone unit “Birds of Magyar” for further investigations.
According to the military experts, it is still unclear at what stage the Russian development of drones of this type is.
But apparently the Russian military is at least ready to send a prototype to the front.
What seems quite exotic to laypeople is apparently a well-known technology in military circles that is used to control anti-tank missiles.
“In particular, Israel's Spike-ER anti-tank missile system, which is used worldwide, is capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to ten kilometers using fiber optic cables,”
Militarnyi
continued.
Nevertheless: There are no miracle weapons, as military experts never tire of emphasizing.
Rather, the decisive factor is the combat of combined arms.