DONETSK, April 10 – RIA Novosti. At least 200 hours of practical flights at a training ground where conditions are created that simulate combat operations are needed to train an operator of attack FPV drones, Artem Mozho, an operator of attack FPV drones of the reconnaissance company of the 428th regiment of the Center group, told RIA Novosti.
“Training servicemen from scratch requires at least a month, since there is a theoretical part and a practical part. In the practical part, we train at this training ground, at least 200 hours are needed to hit targets well and accurately, to practice all the skills. The more he (the operator – ed.) practices the hours of flight, the more effective his hit will be,” the UAV operator said. According to him, both recruits and experienced operators undergo training at the training ground, honing their skills.
“On the obstacle course we have narrow openings in the form of windows and houses. There is a model of a house – the operator can fly into windows and doorways. Further along the course we have a forest – an imitation of a forest, so that the boys can learn to parry in the forest,” the serviceman said about the conditions created at the training ground, as close as possible to a combat flight of an attack FPV drone. He also added that for practicing techniques for hitting targets, the training ground has a model of an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV – ed.) with a landing compartment, a hangar and a dugout of a simulated enemy. “A large number of servicemen are interested in acquiring piloting skills,” the interlocutor said in conclusion.
https://ria.ru/20250410/tsentr-2010372828.html
Comment: I don’t think anyone can argue that Ukraine and Russia are the current leaders in drone warfare. I was surprised the Russian Army, or at least this one unit, puts their drone operators through a month of training including 200 hours of flying drones. I find that impressive in light of how little training Russian infantrymen are getting before being thrown into the meat grinder. What little drone training I’ve seen in our Army consists of a week of training by a contractor course, more an introduction to drones than a true training course. I certainly hope it’s addressed in our officer and NCO training courses. Not sure what China is doing in this field, but I’ve seen a video of anti-drone training for the PLA that was fairly elaborate. It emphasized digging in with overhead cover and wire mesh anti-drone screens on the dugouts as well as how to shoot down drones.
The closest thing to this I’ve experienced was in light infantry training at both Fort Benning and in the 25th Infantry Division. We dug in whenever we stopped moving and place a heavy emphasis on camouflage and concealment. We used wire communications to reduce our electronic signature. When moving we always employed air guards and practiced how to engage attacking aircraft with our infantry weapons. That included live fire exercises against ballistic rockets. The threat then was enemy helicopters and fast movers. Today’s drone threat is far more dangerous in my opinion. And I don’t see our Army taking this threat as serious as it should.
TTG
TTG why don’t you every talk about Ukraine? You are obsessed with the genocide in Gaza (obvious sarcasm).
Here are my predictions.
1. Western Ukraine will remain free because Putin never wanted it.
2. Z. will either be assassinated or leave Ukraine because he wants to fight to save his position but Ukrainians will stop fighting because they know that Putin doesn’t want them.
3. Russia will get all of the Donbas.
Now this is not what I want, this is just my analysis. I don’t give a flip over how this ends as long as it ends.
Christian J Chuba,
There’s very little to read or write about the Gaza genocide, which I agree is a genocide. It’s a genocide born of Israeli incompetence. It’s been well over a year and the “much vaunted” IDF cannot root out an armed Hamas from a confined area. Where’s the tales of Israeli Commando tunnel rats courageously hunting down Hamas militants and murderers?
I agree that Russia may get all (or most) of the Donbas. It will become known as the new captive nations (or oblasts) of Eastern Europe for decades to come. It will also remain a dead zone for as as long as it remains under Moscow’s rule.
If Russia gets their occupied areas, they will have to spend a lot of money to defend it. It will face a nation with a lot of resentment and it is unlikely that all the sanctions will be lifted in reality. It may be called something else, but the rest of Europe will not accept this land grab. They will not go to military action over it, but there are numerous ways to keep Russia out of their affairs. The concept of pyrrhic victory comes to mind. Americans have short memories, Europeans don’t.
Lars,
Europe won’t accept this defeat? Which of the “numerous ways to keep Russia out of their affairs” that have not been used are they going to try next; all the other having failed?
Trouble is, Lars, the Ukraine we all in the West think we’re preserving from the Russians is an invention of the Western press. It doesn’t exist.
Might have done, before 2014, if they’d managed to keep the corruption and gangsterism under control. Doesn’t even exist in prospect now.
It’s a police state ruled by terror. A significant proportion of those in the Kharkov-Odessa arc don’t want to live under Kiev rule any more. The notion that the Donbass is groaning under Russian rule and can’t wait to be liberated is pure fiction. Apart from the ideologues, and apart from the officials making hay while the sun shines, the entire country now wants nothing more than to live in peace and have done with being used as a Western proxy against the Russians.
That’s the real Ukraine, I’m afraid, not the sanitised version our politicians and press serve up to us. Try 48 minutes of this interview with Panchenko and get a glimpse of how it really is there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fKpgFaoPD4&ab_channel=GlennDiesen
Lars – this section is now old but if it’s OK with TTG, further valuable material that gets us up to date with the “Ultras” who shot into prominence in 2014.
For me Ishchenko’s the main authority on those. The best study I’ve seen from the West is one from Stanford University but that’s no longer available to the general public. No matter. There are plenty of others more up to date.
Diana Panchenko, who is linked to in my reply to you above, is from Eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian from the West of the country, Marta Havryshko, is an academic also focusing on the same subject. So that’s a view from both sides.
https://x.com/havryshkomarta?lang=en
Two interviews with her here, both required listening, I’d say, to anyone wanting to find out what’s happening right now in that tormented country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ8nyy4LHGU&ab_channel=TheBurningArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Y43amCeac&ab_channel=TheBurningArchive
The second interview a passionate attack on anti-Semitism and on the academics and others who go along with it, and then further views on the conflict. A grenade for every dugout, I thought, when I listened to that second interview just now.
……………………………..
But that brief look at this side of the conflict is sketchy compared with what I’ve just come across from “b”. “b’s” done a comprehensive piece on the enlargement of the Azov brigades, or Corps as they seem to be hoping.
My own tentative view and I advance it with diffidence :- this looks like the Heavenly Hundred becoming the Heavenly Hundred Thousand. They’ll leave for Europe taking their Dolchstoßlegende with them and be a thoroughly destabilising influence in European politics. If Cold War II develops as it looks like doing at present they’ll also be useful as a modern day Gehlen Organisation. Shall we in Europe ever escape that old and savage history? There’s plenty of us would like to, I think.
“Growth Of Ukraine’s Azov Units Follow Path Of The Waffen-SS”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/04/growth-of-ukraines-azov-units-follow-path-of-the-waffen-ss.html#more
How about American made and supplied 2,000-pound bombs crumpling 10-story apartment buildings in Gaza?
Or this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo
The amount of carnage inflicted by Israel is totally disproportionate to what anti-Zionists have done.
It is very difficult to be sympathetic to Israel.
Keith,
Who said war is supposed to be “proportionate”? That is another of those “rules” or “Laws” that people unquestionably believe is written in the heavens, or something.
The Palestinians are mortal enemies of Israel. Generations of Palestinian children have been indoctrinated from birth, in schools, in mosques, in media and at home, to hate Jews and are taught that murdering them is righteous. Hamas and similar groups hide amongst these children and their parents.
The culture is guilty. The only way they can be saved is to be shown that there is no hope whatsoever for their terrorism based culture. If they want to live and prosper they must change that culture. Otherwise, they will be subject to ruthless warfare. There is no other way to deal with such recalcitrant evil.
And, it might be working. Gaza residents have turned on Hamas here and there in recent weeks. In response, Hamas has begun executing Gaza Palestinians who speak against Hamas.
These people are not like you or your neighbors.
Btw, what I described in the above comment is exactly how the US dealt with Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in WW2. It worked.
This is your site, and you are going to write about what interests you and that’s fine. Regarding Gaza, I find it amazing that Israel is imposing a total food blockade on 2M people and our MSM acts as if this is totally normal while they cry genocide about the Uighurs, who are oppressed but have not been slaughtered.
I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this. Yeah we starved Yemen but our govt hides this but the Israeli govt openly announces a starvation blockade making no attempt to hide it. I find this an amazing new development.
——-
Regarding my comments on Z. I’m only pointing out that we don’t actually know what Ukrainians thing about the war because there have been no elections with a ‘appeasement’ candidate. Maybe they hate it or maybe they love it; don’t know but if you do not let the people express their views at the ballot box, they will find another way to do so.
Might find this related item of interest TTG:
https://www.twz.com/air/every-marine-a-drone-pilot-individual-lethality-to-go-from-meters-to-kilometers
JK –
That Australian-made DefendTech D40 drone is interesting: https://www.defendtex.com/wp-content/uploads/D40_V10_Product_DataSheet.pdf
Some reportedly are being shipped to Ukraine. So they will be field tested in combat.
As far as every Marine a drone operator, I like the concept. But the devil is going to be in the details.
leith,
That D40 drone does seem interesting. Seems like a much improved version of the Switchblade. I can see everyone carrying a few of them and having the designated drone operator having a steady stream of them at the ready. I read that Ukrainian drone units keep a few birds in the air and pass control off to the best drone operators as they approach a target for maximum effect.
That every Marine a drone operator could be used in a similar way. I can’t see every Marine being fully proficient in piloting drones, but maybe trained up to a minimum level to handle a recon drone or an attack drone on standby.
JK/AR,
Very interesting. I knew the Marines were working with drones, but I didn’t know about their Attack Drone Team. It’s based about five miles north of me. One of these days I might swing by and see if they’ll talk to me. follow some of the links in that article and you’ll find the U.S. National Drone Association which I find to be an exciting way to go forward rather than simply a top down Pentagon program office.
https://www.usnda.org
It does remind me of how our Group Commander, Colonel Potter, got approval to develop the new individual winter clothing and equipment for us (then the Brits going to the Falklands) and then the entire Army. We did the same for the M-25 sniper weapon.
TTG –
Maybe in addition to visiting Quantico’s Attack Drone Team, you can head to DC in June to observe the Military Competitive Drone Matches. Open to members of all four services plus college & high school students. Or maybe can you wangle an invitation to the USNDA Drone Crucible competition in late June/early July? Looks like in later rounds they’ll be inviting a Ukrainian team to compete. If you did make it to any of those, then they’d be damned appealing subjects to post here.
https://www.usnda.org/compete
https://www.usnda.org/about-3-2
BTW, I see DefendTex also has 81mm and 155mm drones.
I believe it was on the ChinaTalk podcast that I heard a correspondent with The Economist say that the Ukrainians are working hard on AI that will be able to fly a drone into a target over the last couple of hundred meters – and that they are close to having it working.
As he said, it would be a big deal because this is when the drones tend to lose radio communications due to jamming and this is the most difficult part of flying the drones. He said that very experienced/skilled operators could hit the target 80% of the time but regular operators have something closer to a 15% (I think) success rate.
Perhaps it is already working? Ukrainian FPV drones (typically <$20K each) just destroyed two $200 billion Russkii Borisoglebsk-2 EW systems:
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukrainian-defense-forces-destroy-two-russian-1744723481.html
Wow.
James
“they are close to having it working.”
As with all software (my field), “close” is nearly meaningless. The rule of thumb is: “The last 20% takes 80% of the time.” So when they start hitting things is when you can start paying attention. And actually the Ukrainians have a pretty good record. But never bet on “close”.
fredw,
I am a software developer as well. I agree with you completely and on top of that I don’t trust The Economist any further than I can throw it. That said, if they can get it working I think it will be a big deal. As you say the Ukrainians have a pretty good track record.
I have no doubt that AI is the future of drone warfare.
James,
Someday soon Elon Musk’s AI robots will largely replace grunts on the battlefield. Drones will be in the air. Armor will all be drones.
Wars will be won by the wealthiest nations with the most and best tech.
I would guess the training is necessarily extended due to the plethora of platforms they probably have to be able to precisely pilot. Everything is changing so rapidly “standardization” appears to me, for the moment, a laughable fairy tale. Have to be able to use everything from fiber optic to dealing with anticipating EW/terrain interference on multiple platforms will take some time, with enough base knowledge to adapt to the next change rapidly in the field? 200 hours may actually be pretty short.
“German tanks are failing in Ukraine for the same reasons they lost World War II” says Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, picking up on the fact that the Leopard 2, like much Western war machinery, is a little heavy and needs more maintenance than is always available on the front line.
Unfair, I thought. Germany lost that earlier war because it ended up fighting three continents and an island which – you there, Eric? – was not quite as “soggy” in those days as it is now.
My own view is that what won WWII was twenty miles of water but that’s a minority view. After the twenty miles of water had done its work Willow Run and the massive factory complexes behind the Urals took care of the rest. Surprising only that the White Tiger, faced with that seemingly limitless industrial cornucopia, lasted as long as it did.
Surprising too that today’s White Tiger is lasting so long. It didn’t have such a lot to go up against the Russians with this time round. The soggy island has a lovely army but I’ll never forgive Scott Ritter – Ritter often lacks tact – for calling it the Benjamin Button of militaries. We knew well before 2022, from the Inspector General’s reports, that the German army was in grave danger of running out of broomsticks. And Willow Run had deindustrialised long since and could barely manage a day’s supply of shells a year.
What the Brits and the Yanks are doing fighting alongside the White Tiger this time round isn’t a question for now. But the result has never been in doubt. If we could eavesdrop on what Helmer calls today’s Stavka we’d hear a load of Russian Generals, from Gerasimov down, throwing up their hands and saying “Where the hell’s the opposition?”
At first glance the opposition doesn’t seem to be there at all. The Western General Staffs have done a reasonable imitation of beach cricketers playing a Test squad. From day one to Kursk they’ve micro-managed the unfortunate Ukrainians to perdition. Shelling NPP’s and fixing up atrocity theatre, not to mention Radakin’s brainless japes in the Black Sea, doesn’t cut it. What was needed was good solid generalship; and the overflowing cemeteries all over Ukraine bear witness to the undeniable fact that what we gave the Ukrainians instead, when it came to both strategy and tactics, was undiluted amateur night.
We did no better with supplies. Mostly the Ukrainian were left looking dolefully at the cast-offs we sent them. When we did send them over good stuff there wasn’t enough of it and it was seldom anywhere near good enough. Boondoggle kit, most of it. Dr North, who knows his war machines, reckons the Bradleys might have been the stars of the show but that very fact shows that the show we put on was a dead loss.
So in the end the only opposition the White Tiger could put up to the Bear was our proxies themselves. But there the White Tiger struck gold. Incompetently generalled, the administration we’d gifted them from 2014 onwards a grotesque freak show, under-supplied, the economy falling apart at the seams, appallingly overmatched in numbers, those Ukrainians fought like heroes.
Still are, in places. I hope we remember that as the blame game gets underway in earnest. For a year and more now – I think since Vilnius – we’ve been seeing the disaster blamed on our proxies. Both in the US press and in the London press we’re now seeing the shameful message coming out. “We did frightfully well in the war – but the Ukrainians let us down.” I’ve just been reading some of that. There can be no better illustration of the rot that has set in with both our politicians and our militaries. To mismanage a war as badly as we have done and then to blame it on the men who fought it so heroically.
EO,
This is from Tom Cooper’s Sarcastosaurus. Seems the newest Leopards are over engineered and too complicated. That’s not an unusual German engineering trait. I would think the Abrams may suffer from the same problem, but don’t know for sure. There were very few Leopard 2A6s and only 33 Abrams given to Ukraine so that’s not as dire a problem as it seems. But that’s good news on Western gun barrels.
“Artillery barrels were expected to wear out around 4,500 shots but the barrel on Ukraine’s Bhodana howitzer was found to be effective even after 7-8,000 shots, and the barrel wear on western guns was minimal after 4-9,000 shots. The barrels of the German PzH 2000 were still effective after 20,000 shots. But a German report on the weapon systems they sent to Ukraine was mixed. The older Leopard 1A5, Marder IFV and Gepard AA gun have positive reviews and no complaints. The IRIS-T and Patriot systems are excellent in combat but are critically short of missiles. The Leopard 2A6 is too difficult to maintain and the PzH 2000 has physical and software malfunctions. Due to the high rates of failure, more vehicles need to be available as replacements. Future weapon purchases need to consider simplicity, reliability and ammo availability as part of their requirements.”
TTG – Yes, and both sides have used the war as an opportunity to get rid of old stuff that would otherwise have to be scrapped. Early on the Russians used their older tanks on occasion. T 54’s if memory serves. Getting infantry across the ground fast after artillery preparation and also for indirect fire. If it works, do it, I suppose they thought and the tanks were only mouldering away in deep storage otherwise.
Must also apply to ammunition getting to the end of its shelf life. One British volunteer early on recounted what it was like to be under a heavy but not particularly accurate artillery barrage and it did sound as if there were shells to spare. On the other hand he’d been lucky to escape with his life at Yavoriv so he got both ends of the scale. From precision missiles to clearing out old stock.
I’d guess the North Koreans were happy to do similar house clearing of their old stuff and our side used the war in a similar way. The killing grounds of the Donbass could also be viewed as a gigantic waste disposal project. And no fussy Health and Safety inspectors around to worry about the resultant toxins.
But allowing for all that we didn’t send enough kit over and not enough useful kit. The Ukrainians were and are quite positive about that. We also, as Borrell of all people pointed out, had only trained the Ukrainians up in small unit work. We’d expected a quite different sort of war. Our Generals were babes unborn when it came to this type of war and were caught on the hop when they had to direct it. The same happened, on a smaller scale, in the post 2014 fighting.
It shouldn’t have been such a shambles. Although numerically inferior now the Ukrainian army was massive at the start. This was in truth by far the largest army NATO had at its disposal and it got upended by a comparatively small Russian expeditionary force. That was not only due to incompetence. It was because we’d never expected the Russians to react as they did.
We’re still fumbling around but the Americans are now, I think, beginning to get the hang of how the Russians do war. That’s why they’re attempting to walk away. The European politicians and military are, at least from what they say, still living in the dreamland they were living in when they started it. They’re much more invested in the war than the Americans ever were – it’s a primary goal for the Europeans – so the return to reality for them is going to be a lot harder.
EO,
The Russians began the war with their best equipment, although the bulk of the invading force consisted of T-72s and BMP-2s. The T-80s and T-90s weren’t that common at the beginning of the war and are even less seen on the battlefield. Now they’re using mostly T-62s and still T-72s. The T-55 museum pieces are now in use, but only in very small numbers and mostly as jerry-rigged assault barns. They’re now using unarmored cars, Scooby Doo Vans and motorcycles for personnel carriers on the battlefield. I think a lot of that change has to do with the dramatic change in the nature of the war due to drones dominating the battlefield. A lot has to do with the continued losses of Russian IFVs and military transport.
The Russian invasion force was almost as large as the entire Ukrainian armed forces. It was not a small raiding force. What seemed odd to me was the lack of thorough spetznaz/VDV preparation of the invasion route and continued disruption of Ukrainian rear areas. The seizure of Hostomel Airport and repeated commando raids into Kyiv were glimpses into this critical part of Russian doctrine, but that didn’t occur throughout Ukraine. That failure was due to a severe underestimation of the staying power of Ukrainian forces. Or maybe that part of Russian doctrine was mostly myth, badly overestimated by myself and most Western militaries.
Our concentration on small unit training was a factor in Ukraine’s ability to withstand Russia’s initial invasion. That and the provision of sufficient man portable AT and AA weapons allowed the Ukrainian units to operate against the full depth of the Russian invasion routes. The ability of the Ukrainians to withstand repeated assaults against prepared positions in the Donbas should have been a warning against the later attempted Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Surovikin line. Both the Ukrainian generals and their Western advisors were late to learn that lesson.
Western reticence to supply Ukraine with large amount of the most modern equipment was largely driven by Biden administration fear of provoking Russia into a wider war. Some was our continued belief that the Ukrainian military simply could not absorb or operate our latest equipment. But our inability to supply Ukraine with sufficient ammunition was because we just couldn’t produce enough of it. That remains a problem. Ukraine is now compensating for this through her mass manufacturing and employment of drones. It’s the one sector of this war where Ukraine still dominates Russia.
Drones have totally changed the conduct of war. Both Ukraine and Russia have grasped this fact and have adjusted accordingly. The rest of the world is playing catch up.
“Ukraine is now compensating for this through her mass manufacturing and employment of drones.”
Which makes me wonder:
Why doesn’t Russia attack and destroy Ukraine’s ability to produce drones?
If Russia could identify where those are being produced, Russia’s vaunted ballistic missiles should be able to destroy those production facilities.
Keith Harbaugh,
Ukraine’s drone manufacturing is widely dispersed, difficult to target. Russian ballistic missiles have not proven to be that accurate judging by their rather indiscriminate strikes.
TTG – I still reckon that what happened in early ’22 was the key to it all. As I saw it then, the Russians didn’t only upend the Ukrainian forces. They upended us.
They didn’t go “Afghanistan”. They went “Falkenhayn”. Nothing I’ve read since has lead me to a different conclusion. In fact much has come out since that confirms that conclusion.
Still leaves the Russians with the same problem as in ’22. How on earth are they going to deal with remnant Ukraine?
If they don’t occupy then that leaves remnant Ukraine as a base for NATO to run sabotage and assassination missions out of, and probably to pop a few drones over.
If they do occupy then well, look at Panchenko’s account above of how it is in the villages around Lvov. They really don’t like Russians around that way and it’ll end up worse than Northern Ireland for any occupying forces.
Your Donald Trump could assist in resolving that puzzle, my view. If he can get past the neocons and the Europeans. That’s if he wants to get past them. I hope he does.
EO,
You do remember that the Russian invasion of Afghanistan began with the rapid overthrow of the government in Kabul and the installment of their own puppet government. Then the plan fell apart. The tribes rose up and we certainly stirred the pot. The same initial rapid overthrow of the government in Kyiv was tried, but it failed miserably. Not only did that plan fall apart, but the Ukrainians rallied around their government and fought like hell.
Remnant Ukraine, as you call it, is not just the villages around Lviv. The Russian invasion did more to galvanize Ukrainian nationalism than anything the ultras or Nuland ever did. Russian speakers began learning Ukrainian. Kharkiv remains the home ground of the Azov-related military units. The resistance in the occupied territories is still strong, even in Crimea. A cessation of open hostilities between Ukraine and Russia may be reached with no more drone and missile strikes on each other’s territories, but the occupation of Ukrainian territory will never be accepted by Kyiv or the rest of Ukraine. Resistance will continue, even if it becomes less overtly violent. The captive oblasts will become the new “captive nations” as a rally point for at least Eastern and Central Europe. A new cold war will be the norm for the European continent. The Trump regime will be aligned with Moscow and Pyongyang and assorted other tin pot dictators, but I doubt that will survive Trump’s eventual fading from history.
The only interesting reports I’ve seen recently are that some sectors of the front are covered only by drones.