Moscow was targeted by drones on Tuesday morning. This comes after weeks of intensive attacks on Kyiv by Russian drones in which Russia used more than 300 Iranian-designed Shahed drones to terrorize Ukraine.
The drone wars unfolding over the skies of Ukraine and Moscow, a distance of more than 1,000 km. illustrate how drones are the go-to weapon now for use in complex future wars.
Russia says, according to state TASS media, that “Moscow and the Moscow Region were attacked by drones early on Tuesday morning. Several buildings sustained minor damage, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. According to the authorities, there were no casualties and emergency services are continuing to work at the scene.”
Russia forced to admit its drone vulnerability
Moscow has had to admit it is vulnerable now to what appear to be Kyiv’s drones. “Fire and rescue units arrived at the scene. There were no signs of fire. According to eyewitnesses, the sound of an explosion was heard at the time of the incident…Emergency services told TASS that drone-like fragments were found around the house. The windows of apartments on three floors were shattered.”
The Kyiv Post also noted that “Moscow was targeted by a drone attack early on Tuesday morning causing ‘minor’ damage to several buildings but no casualties, according to the city’s mayor.” Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, was quoted as claiming several drones had been intercepted. Meanwhile, Russia has used more than 300 drones, according to data we have compiled based on Ukrainian air force reports on social media, to attack Ukraine. These drones are mostly of the delta-wing Shahed 136 type.
Russian law enforcement officers stand guard near a damaged multi-storey apartment block following a reported drone attack in Moscow, Russia, May 30, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA)For instance, on May 29 Ukraine’s air force said that it had intercepted 29 Shahed 136 or Shahed 131 type drones. Ukraine has recently threatened sanctions against Iran for supplying Russia with drones. Iran has slammed Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the sanctions.
The drone strike on Moscow on Tuesday comes almost a month after another drone incident at the Kremlin on May 3. In that incident, footage showed two drones apparently targeting the heart of Moscow. A week ago, reports emerged that Ukraine was likely behind that attack, according to The New York Times and other publications.
Ukraine: A drone war innovator
Ukraine has also been an innovator in the drone wars.
Initially, Ukraine relied on the Bayraktar drones it had acquired from Turkey before the Russian invasion. Now Ukraine has a plethora of drones, including many innovated locally. Ukraine uses them to target Russian forces on the battlefield. It also uses unmanned drone boats to challenge Russian naval supremacy in the Black Sea. Today it appears Ukraine is also able to penetrate Russian airspace and strike at Moscow, some 600km from the frontline. This is an important mission for Ukraine, showing Russia that it can strike back against Russia’s drone barrages.
We now know that drones are a key weapon in this war. Drones have been around for many decades. The US used to use drones for targets for aerial combat and air defense tests. In the 1980s, Israel pioneered the use of drones to help find Syrian air defenses in Lebanon.
Drones, sometimes called Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) come in many types and sizes. Generally the term “drone” can mean anything from small quadcopters that are commercially available to large drones like the Global Hawk that can cost $200 million.
During the US global war on terror after 2001, Washington often relied on Predator and Reaper drones to hunt down terrorists. These were effective on battlefields such as Iraq and Afghanistan where the adversary has no air defenses. They were also used in more clandestine operations over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Drones are well suited for this kind of work because they can do dull, dirty and dangerous missions; meaning the kind of missions that one doesn’t want to risk the life of a pilot to perform.
In the last decade, numerous countries have entered the military drone market. This means that there is a rapid explosion of new drones. This is the period in the evolution of drone warfare and the future of warfare that is similar to the evolutionary period known as the Cambrian explosion when a huge number of new species and animals appeared in the historical record. Early adopters of drones, such as Israel and the US, are now also joined by China, Iran and Turkey now building armed drones,
Russia, which was the first country to send an artificial satellite to space in the 1950s, has been slow to uptake drones. It relies on simple, cheap and expendable Iranian drones. Russia uses these to terrorize Ukrainian cities. These drones are not very precise and most of them are shot down by Ukraine’s increasingly proficient air defenders who are armed with western supplied systems such as Patriot and IRIS-T.
Ukraine is innovating and growing its drone arsenal. As western munitions and weapon systems continue to pour into Kyiv, the Ukrainians will continue to innovate in their use of unmanned systems. Russia has used cheap, expendable drones to harass Ukrainian civilians.
However, Russia does not have a lot of drones that can actually help it win the war. Moscow is simply not an innovative country when it comes to using unmanned systems. This is due to necessity. Russia relied on a heavy big army, and also on special forces and airborne units in recent conflicts. It sent these forces to fight in Georgia and Syria and Libya.
Today, Russia faces a real challenge from Ukraine. Ukraine has defeated Russia’s Iranian-backed drone threat and now Kyiv is showing it can strike back.
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