Why drones became the deadliest weapon on the Ukrainian frontline | DW News

I've heard over the past few years a lot about how the war in Ukraine has become the first drone war in history, and I've understood on some level that the humming of drones has replaced the thud of exploding shells as a sound that haunts soldiers on the front line. Ukraine's no-man's land is not a line of trenches filled with soldiers waiting to charge, but mostly depopulated kill zones, usually a lonely field or forest with small groups of technicians flying an army of relatively cheap FPV drones or first-person view drones. Those are the same ones that you can buy in an electronics store here in Berlin. Maybe that's why I found it hard to understand how these small weapons had become so deadly and so frightening. To me they seemed like the toys of teenagers having some after-school fun. Now I have to admit that I found it hard to believe comments like this one on YouTube from someone claiming to be an Iraq war veteran saying that he's so glad he didn't have to deal with drones. Scary AF. It never really clicked with me at least until I heard a story from my friend and colleague Max Xander who was filming near the front line and was hunted by a drone. This area already is in the reach of drones so that's the reason why the soldiers here in the car are going as fast as they possibly can. We have to stop and get out. There was a drone targeting the car. Where there's one there are usually more. A shotgun is the last resort. It was how Max described that situation after coming back to Berlin that it really sunk in for me how terrifying drone warfare really is. The sense of being stalked by a weapon that can hover like a helicopter but small and agile enough to pass through an open window of a house and go room to room looking for you. I want to share that conversation with you along with insights from a weapons expert and a drone pilot to answer the questions how dangerous are drones really, how to survive an encounter with one, and what impact the constant threat of drones is having on the soldiers and journalists who spend their days under drone infested skies. Max, it's good to see you here in the studio in Berlin. If you could start off just by introducing yourself and telling us what you do for DW. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm Max. I work for DW. My work title is special correspondent, which means I'm based in Berlin, but I also travel to wherever I'm needed for the news for coverage. And most of the time I spend my time in Ukraine. So pretty much half the year I'm in Kiev or traveling in Ukraine and reporting from there. And you've been reporting from the front lines quite a bit for DW. I've seen a lot of your reports. This last one that you brought back was really harrowing. And that's why we're talking about it today, looking at specifically your encounter with a drone. So maybe you could just start from the beginning and tell me what you were doing that day and how you got into that situation. Yeah, sure. So I mean, this was supposed to be a quick routine story, something that we've done time and time again. It was supposed to be a story about drones, actually. So we were filming with the 25th Brigade in the Donetsk region, close to the city of Pokrovsk, which I think most of our viewers will know it's one of the hottest areas in the war right now. And we were supposed to film with a unit that uses these big drones, like heavy bomber drones, not for bombing, but to run logistics, because it's just very difficult to get stuff to the front line, right? We are at a base camp of the 25th Brigade, somewhere in the Donetsk region. Here in the rear, the men prepare supplies for the soldiers holding the line around the city of Pokrovsk. So the plan was for us to join one of their teams at night, film them, because they work at night, because these drones are heavy and loud and slow, and they could get shot down during the day and give away friendly positions. So we're supposed to go there, spend the night with them, see how they work, and then return. And how close were you to the front line at that point? Yeah, so we were told that this is one of the safer areas. And it's difficult to say, okay, where is it? Because there's no defined front line. There's a zero line. So this is the imaginary line between the Russians and the Ukrainians. But then also, there's not everywhere, there's positions along the entire front line. Yeah, it's not like in World War I, where you have a trench, which is literally a line. Some places are. Yeah, some places are, but not everywhere, right? But we were told it's about 10-15 kilometers from the front line. So what happened then? You were supposed to try to, you were trying to make it to this safe point, where you're going to meet some of the people you're going to interview, but you didn't get all the way there before you had your first encounter with a drone. Exactly, yeah. So we met parts of the unit in, let's call it their base camp in some village, and we were just waiting for it to get dark. Then our transport pulled up, which was a so-called soft skin, so not an armored car. It was a pickup truck and two guys in it. So a driver and another guy, so two soldiers, a driver and the other soldier who was in charge of the communication and navigation a little bit. And in the back, it was me and my team. So this was Arseniy and Dima, Arseniy the cameraman, and Dima producer, and the three of us as the passengers in the back. So as it was getting dark quickly, we got in the car and we started driving. And at first, everything was pretty chill. I mean, we were recording some pieces to camera, like filming a little bit on the road. It was supposed to be a 20-minute drive, something like that. And the guys, I mean, they were taking it seriously, but it didn't, it wasn't... It didn't already seem like a crisis situation. No, no, it seemed like routine. Okay, I mean, everything, like moving in this combat area, of course, it's very dangerous and you have to take everything seriously, but this is their, this is their bread and butter. This is what they do every day, right? But it didn't seem like this was where we're going to encounter something very difficult This is a little safety mechanism, putting on these green stripes since we'll be moving in the in the combat zone or close, closer to the front line. And we don't want to be mistaken by by the Ukrainians for, for Russians. Is that correct? So we're on the way to the position. This drone team is going to fly their supply flights. It's about 10, 15 kilometers from, I'm told, away from the actual zero line from where we're going. But nevertheless, this area already is in the reach of drones. So that's the reason why the soldiers here in the car are going as fast as they possibly can. So at some point we had been driving for 15 minutes, maybe almost 20 minutes, something like that. So we were, it seemed pretty close. We suddenly stopped and they're like, get out, so I assumed we were there and we just had to like move quickly, just not get into position. So I was sitting in the middle. I think Dima was sitting on my left. Arseniy was on the right. Opened the door, got out. And yeah, as I exited the car, there was this big, big blast. Boom. I don't know. I mean, it's really hard to tell how far away this was, but it seemed not too far away. So maybe, I don't know, 30 meters away, something like that. So relatively close. So, and we immediately understood, okay, this is, this is not good. So we left the car, all of us as a group, ran into some, some, some garden. So one of the soldiers told you just run. They were like, come, come, come, come, go, go, go, go, go. And I was like, okay, we just, we just followed them. Meanwhile, the more senior soldier or more experienced soldier, he was the driver who was in charge. He had a shotgun with it with him and he racked the shotgun. So I understood, okay, this is, this is really not good. And we were standing outside some kind of, it looked, it was pitch black, black, dark, like half dilapidated shed garage, something. This was, it wasn't a house. It was, this was like an abandoned, like some kind of abandoned village with a big, with a shed with a big, big hole in it, which probably used to be the window, I guess. No door in it, like lots of junk inside. We stood there for a couple minutes and we were like, the guy in charge, the guy with the shotgun was telling us quiet, be quiet. And then I remember I was asking Dima, I was like, hey man, is this, is this the place where we're supposed to be? Cause it felt kind of off. I mean, I knew this was a bad, like something was not going according to plan, but I had at least hoped, okay, we're, we're, we're here where we're supposed to be. But he was like, he was looking at me, he was like, yeah, I don't, I don't think so. But now is not the time to ask. Cause they were like, these guys were busy trying to figure things out. The guy with the shotgun telling us to be quiet. And then we understood why we're supposed to be quiet because we could hear the sound of the FPV drone, you know, like a, sounds like an angry swarm of bees. And not too far distance. Yeah. Flying and making, making its rounds. I'm trying to find a target. Assessing what to do next. We're taking shelter. Trying to stay concealed. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. You were listening to that sound. Yeah. We were listening to that sound. And what were you thinking at that moment? You did, you were just waiting for somebody to tell you what to do next. Yeah. And also that this is just not good where we're standing pretty much. I mean, we were, we were not in shelter yet. So we moved into, we moved into this, the shed, at least we, we had, we had coverage there. And we were, we were covered. The guy with the shotgun was standing outside. We were inside. So I was like, we were hunkering down, filming. We were like, I was trying to comment a little bit on the situation, trying to explain. And then just like, yeah. Pushing myself up to the wall and just hoping that this drone is not going to find us. Yeah. Well, I actually talked to a weapons expert as well as a drone pilot to kind of figure out how dangerous that situation was really. I mean, from an expert's perspective. And let's listen to what they had to say. Really? That is immensely dangerous. I mean, that sounds like a horrendous situation for everyone involved. I think if the pilot had been very skilled, it's entirely possible they would have found a route into that building with horrific consequences. In terms of taking shelter in buildings. I mean, often in Ukraine, you'll hear stories on both sides where soldiers are just trapped in basements. They're just suppressed. They can't leave for days on end. You know, if there are drones outside on an almost 24-hour basis, it's very dangerous to emerge from cover. If you're in a very large building, it's possible that the drone might chase you in and lose radio frequency connection. But you've also seen fibre optic cable drones, which don't rely on radio frequencies in the air. Essentially, it's a signal down the cable. So skilled fibre optic drone pilots actually have pursued soldiers into buildings and around corridors and things. So buildings don't provide the best protection. But again, you know, shutting doors, putting nets over windows, a lot of the windows will be blown out because it's a war zone, will provide some protection there. But you know, again, it's about a layered solution. Arunas Kumpis, you are originally from Lithuania, but you've been volunteering on the front lines of Ukraine, where you've also worked as a drone pilot. And that's why I want your perspective on this. I'm trying to understand how dangerous a drone is or how effective a drone is. If a soldier was, if you spotted a soldier and you were targeting that soldier, and the soldier was unarmed, what chances would you give that soldier of survival? How accurate is the drone? How effective is it in that situation? What do you mean unarmed soldier? Let's say he doesn't have it. What is the difference between soldier unarmed and armed? Okay, maybe you can tell me that. Do you have a better chance of striking your target if he's unarmed or if he's armed? Doesn't matter. It's like a chance to hit a drone by a gun. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. Extremely difficult. Let's say a soldier is standing alone with a weapon, a shotgun or a rifle or something, and you're the drone pilot and your job is to strike that target, that soldier. What chances do you give him of surviving that strike? Maybe 10% accidentally. He can hit my drone just accidentally, I think. So what you're saying is a drone has a 90% chance of hitting that person. Yep. And is that because you're an excellent drone pilot or would you say most drone pilots are able to that effectively guide their drone toward their target? You know, a drone is a small and fast target and it's extremely difficult to hit this target by a gun. It doesn't matter if you have, for example, a shotgun with shrapnel. You can hit a drone only from the distance from 30 to 50 meters. And it is also dangerous. And not always you can hit a drone because, as I mentioned, he is fast. A drone is moving 150 kilometers per hour and it's extremely difficult to hit it by a gun. But it's possible. What kind of shelter is effective against a drone? Every shelter is better than don't have it. Have you been able to strike targets inside of shelters? Yes, of course. You can fly from the window if it's, for example, 50 centimeters on square. You can fly inside. And then soldiers operating in urbanized the cities or so on, they always trying to hide in the buildings and they trying to cover windows, doors and so on. And we are using different tactics. For example, you fly with two drones and one drone is hitting this cover and the second one flying inside of building. It's a usual routine. So the first drone would then blow out the window, which would give an opening for a second drone to fly in and then attack targets inside the building? Yeah, immediately. One by one. So what are you thinking when you hear this? Yeah, it sounds reasonable, like accurate. Yeah. So it really lines up with how you felt at that moment that you were in a serious situation. I mean, yes. Things went so quickly. Yeah. I mean, imagine we didn't really understand where we exactly were. We didn't know our target location, where we had to go. We didn't know how far this was away. We had no communication with anybody else. So I mean, we were in a situation where we just had a complete lack of orientation. One of the things that made me want to talk to you again about this story is one thing you told me right after you had gotten back from that situation where you described the feeling that you had in that hut being hunted by a drone, you described it as hunted by a drone, that it felt not like the fear of an impersonal attack from a shell or an explosion somewhere, or when you're in Kiev and you hear the air raid sirens and there's something falling from the sky. You had the feeling that this drone was looking for you and that was a particular kind of terror for you. Yeah, for sure. I mean, being shelled with artillery or with so-called guided bombs, for example. I mean, I've experienced that too on other trips, but I don't want to take away from that because that's also super scary. And then usually somebody would just yell something like, get to cover you, throw yourself on the ground, then it would be over. But with this particular event with the FPV, this FPV announced itself. You can hear it usually. I mean, there's also instances where you don't hear it coming, but in our case, we could hear it. It was very quiet. We could only hear this FPV and we knew exactly this FPV. If they find us, they're going to try to take us out. And if they don't succeed with that FPV, they're likely to send many more until they get the job done. And it's going to be, yeah, it would be very, very difficult for us to get out of that situation. And we heard from the drone pilot and from our weapons expert that if you're in a shelter with a solid roof, if there's a window that's open, a drone pilot theoretically could come inside. So this is a new type of warfare. And that also changes how people experience the situation of being attacked by drones. I mean, yes, I think the main issue is that if a drone pilot, FPV pilot spots you, you cannot, it's very difficult to run away. You probably can't run away. I mean, you could hide in a shelter if you were next to a shelter and then there was, and you would be able to call it. I mean, this would have to happen very, very quickly. I mean, you can try to outrun a drone in a car and just hope that as the drone has to accelerate, it drains the battery faster than it catches up with you. But once a drone spots you and knows you're there, there's very little you can do. And as we just heard, shooting a drone down with a shotgun is also, I mean, that's the last resort, but it takes a lot of skill and a lot of luck. And imagine you're in a situation, adrenaline is pumping. It's dark. You don't have a clear image. It's very, yeah, just very, very difficult. So once you're seen, you're in a very bad position. Yeah. And as we heard, the drone pilot gave himself a 90% chance of winning a battle between a person with a rifle or a shotgun and the drone, essentially. And the drone, if it's shot down, that's just a piece of material. That's not a human life. So it's a complete outmatching of skill, firepower, and even the stakes that are involved in this kind of battle. You've spent a lot of time with drone pilots, with soldiers in Ukraine. You've spent a lot of time on the front lines talking to people who live with this daily and have had many incidents like the one you described just now. What are you hearing from people who have to live under drone infested skies on the front line? I mean, for soldiers, it's very difficult. I mean, that's what we hear time and time again, is that, yeah, the abundance of drones in the skies just makes any type of movement very difficult and any type of tactic really just incredibly difficult. So that's why the Ukrainians also are using these heavy bomber drones to send stuff, water, fuel, munition, cigarettes, food, all these kinds of things, to positions closer to the front line, just because going there by car is extremely dangerous. And if you go move closer to the front line, usually you're going to pass columns of burnt out vehicles that were taken out by drones. Yeah. I also put this question to our weapons expert and drone pilot, and here's what they said. You know, reality is that if you not under cover near front line, there are a lot of drones, and it's new reality. If, for example, you go somewhere from your cover for five minutes, usually you will meet a drone of enemies. So, drones do have a terrible effect on the movement of soldiers, actually, and there are quite disturbing reports on both sides of soldiers returning to the front and just hearing sounds that resemble a drone, you know, like a distant hedge trimmer or something, and basically being re-traumatized. So, they have a terrible effect. They can cause panic in the ranks when drones are heard. Often, soldiers will shoot down one of their own drones because they just panic if they don't know whose it is. They will jam drones, their own drones. It's called panic jamming. That's how common it is. So, the drones have a terrible effect on morale. Actually, you often see Russian attacks, so when they're being filmed by Ukrainian target acquisition drone, it looks like complete chaos. The entire attack, column of soldiers will just break up and scatter, and they're just running in all directions. So, there's no doubt in my mind they have a terrible effect on morale. So, where we left your story is that you were hiding in a shed. You had, for protection, the fact that you were hidden, and also a soldier with a shotgun who was hoping as a last resort he could shoot the drone down if it did find you. How did you get out of that situation? So, yeah, we just waited, and I think it just, maybe five, six minutes, something like that. It felt like an eternity. Yeah, but that was a long five minutes. It was very quiet, but we could very clearly hear this drone making the rounds. And did it go away and then come back? It went away, it became less loud, and then passed by again a lot louder. So, I mean, we were really worried that they might figure out where we were. As a matter of fact, our vehicle was not very far from the position where we were hiding. So, there was a vehicle on the road that could have given away our position, potentially. And so, what happened then? You're here talking to me now, so you must have had a little bit of luck. So, I don't remember exactly what happened to that drone. I'm assuming it went down somewhere, because, I mean, these FPV drones, they're one way. If they fly away, most of the time, I mean, they're going to lose, the battery's going to run out, or they're going to lose connection, they're going to fall out of the sky. Most of the time, they would explode. I don't remember hearing an explosion, but there was also lots of other stuff going on around us and in our minds, I assume. So, after a couple minutes, the soldier who was communicating with the rest of the team probably got some kind of signal that, yeah, the skies are clear now, and we just made a run for it. We ran back to the car, got in the car. We had to turn that huge pickup truck on a very narrow road. It felt like it took forever. We were like sitting ducks. I mean, the headlights were on, we were in the car, the car was moving. It probably took 30 seconds. Why did you have to turn it? Because we had to go the other way. So, I'm not exactly sure why exactly we stopped there, but we went in the opposite direction for a little bit, and then we were back in the car. We managed to turn the car. The driver was cussing heavily. I mean, there was a lot going on there. They were just as scared as we were, I'm sure. And, yeah, they dropped us off at our location. It was pretty close, actually. It turned out to be maybe a three-minute drive from where we were hunkering down, yeah. And what did you learn once you got to that location? That was a safe spot, right? Once you got there, there was a little bit of relief? Safe-ish, safe-ish. I mean, we were still in this abandoned village of which, close to the front line, and the Russians know that there are soldiers in some of the houses there. So, of course, I mean, and theoretically, they can reach these houses, you know, not just with FAV drones, but also with artillery, or with Shahed drones, or with cobs, with these guided bombs, right? It's possible. So, none of these places are really safe, but you have to stay hidden there. But we arrived there. We arrived at this spot where this delivery team, this drone operates, and they were quite surprised that we made it. They told us that they were, yeah, they didn't think we were going to get out of the situation. And I'm sure from where they were, they also heard the FPV drone, and they also heard the first explosion, for sure. And they explained to us what probably went down, which is that this FPV drone was following another vehicle, because... The first FPV drone. Yeah, the first FPV drone. And that's the first explosion that, the explosion that we heard that was very close to our car. It found our car, and then it was taken out by the anti-drone system, by the so-called REP system. It's a signal jammer, essentially. Yeah. So, how it works is that the signal between the drone operator and the drone just gets cut, and the drone falls out of the sky and explodes. So, yeah, we got very lucky that day, yeah. And the second drone was looking for you, or how did that, where did that drone come from? Because the one exploded, and then another one... Yeah, I mean, usually, my understanding is how these drone teams operate is they don't, they just don't send a single, single drone. They will send, they will send multiple drones, especially if there's a target there that they know is a valid target. I don't know what kind of vehicle they were following, but perhaps this was an interesting target for them. And they would have sent another one just in case the first one didn't strike, or didn't manage to take it out. The second could end the job. Max, it's really good to have you safe in Berlin to tell that story. I really hope you don't get into that situation again. I'm glad it turned out the way that it did. If you want to watch his report that's here, you can watch that report. I highly recommend it. I recommend watching all of his reporting from the front lines. Thanks so much for going out there for us, for bringing back these stories. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks. Pleasure to be here.