21 ms·

The Ukraine war is driving rapid innovation in drone technology

57 points by jseliger 2y ago

shmerl 2y ago
Ukraine hitting oil processing plants in Russia using drones has been pretty effective in increasingly crippling Putin's money making machine that feeds his war. And sea drones already practically removed Russian navy from openly operating in the Black sea.
- createdapril24 2y ago
  Overall oil refineries are decent targets because they are high cost and statically located and therefore difficult to defend, but Ukraine certainly wishes it had more conventional weapons at longer ranges so that it could strike deeper and dynamic targets. Ukraine doesn't have many better alternatives. They can strike some energy infrastructure (which they've done) in an effort to affect Russian willpower. It can also try to hit airfields (which they've done) hoping to take out equipment, but Russia has been pretty good at moving equipment out of the way. The strike campaign itself has been moderately effective but definitely short of a war-winning enterprise. Estimates on the actual damage on production and exports has ranged between the fantastical (28%) to the banal (6%). It looks like domestic petrol supply has been hit the hardest in terms of tangible economic costs, since oil prices have remained reasonable with lessened seasonal demand and lower OPEC supply targets. Russia has additionally made deals with Kazakhstan and Belarus to attempt to mitigate some of the economic effects, has been able to repair oil refinery damage, and has experimented with a range of mitigations. The strike campaign has been further complicated by the US election year. The Biden Administration has asked Ukraine to stop targeting oil refineries, because global oil instability could cause a crisis that ultimately causes global issues, rising prices, and Biden a second term. Such strikes are expected to uptick after November. And with the possibility of long range missiles from military sponsors, plus winter-time difficulties, this might be a good window to see what Ukraine can really do. Either way I think the article is not about the long range drones you are alluding to here, but the small commercial sized drones and mid-cost military drones that are based on them.
  - shmerl 2y ago
    Even those percentages of dropping oil profits can be pretty crippling for Putin. Especially since they can repeatedly hit what Putin wastes resources on repairing. And they should continue doing that even more. But they surely need more effective ways to take out Russian military airplanes, especially those which are bombing the front line and cities. Not sure why allies can't supply them with needed technology to do it - they should possess some.
    - unclebucknasty 2y ago
      Russia's latest tactic uses fairly massive old-school dumb bombs, retrofitted with satellite guidance kits. These glide bombs are said to be launched by aircraft from high altitude, just outside of Ukraine's radar range. They have thus far proven highly effective and very difficult to intercept. Not sure F-16s would help here in patrolling closer to launch points and intercepting the aircraft prior to dropping their payloads; or whether they would be too vulnerable. But, it does seem like a job for stealth interceptors, and certainly makes the case for air superiority.
      - tim333 2y ago
        With F16s it rather depends what air to air missiles they are supplied with. There are some that could take out Russian planes from a fair distance. But I'll give you stealth would be better. I'm surprised at how wimpy the west has been with air support - two years in and not an F16 in action. If they'd lent a couple of F35s with volunteer pilots it could have given Russia something to think about.
        unclebucknasty 2y ago
        Yeah, no doubt the F-16s would be equipped with appropriately-ranged missles. The question is around their own vulnerability while patrolling/acquiring targets. Seems to imply a job for stealth, or otherwise establishing air superiority. But, even with the latter the outcome might be variable—especially for eastern / northern Ukranian targets—without incursion into hostile (Russian or Belarusian) airspace. Agree 100% on Western support. Seems we've been fighting to "not escalate" versus fighting to win. But, it's already a war with Ukrainian cities being pounded. In this context, "not escalating" seems to be a euphemism for "losing".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
stevenwoo 2y ago
The AI part in this piece seems a bit premature, as far as I can tell from the promotional videos of successful combat, all of the drones are piloted. The more interesting thing is how each combat brigade for Ukraine (and one can only assume something similar for Russia) has drone operators in addition to the dedicated drone support units as detailed here: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpkeyjwkpm/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpke... Does anyone know if any NATO countries are adapting to this or ideas to break the stalemate on the frontline where neither side can use armored vehicles very effectively due to their drone vulnerability besides the Russians throwing men and equipment into the grinder to soak up Ukrainian ammunition?
- eru 2y ago
  NATO countries rely on massive air superiority. Something neither side in that war has, hence their stalemate. NATO armed forces have comparatively small amounts of armoured ground vehicles and artillery. They need to and want to learn from the current war, but still keep in mind that their circumstances are different.
  - riku_iki 2y ago
    US has air superiority. Other NATO air forces are likely weaker than Russians.
    - eru 2y ago
      Maybe weaker than Russia before the war? They have been bled dry since. But it doesn't really matter: collective defense is the whole point of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
      - riku_iki 2y ago
        > But it doesn't really matter: collective defense is the whole point of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I am not certain US will enter war with Russia in case of some escalation with European countries, especially if Trump will be elected.
resource_waste 2y ago
Was it the urgency of war? Or the non-market money that poured in? I've had fantasies of doing another 1-3 years COVID style, but putting all 2 trillion dollars into cancer research instead of a vaccine that saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people. (or swap it with global warming cures, whatever you want to mobilize the world on)
- eru 2y ago
  I guess Ozempic is the closest thing to that vision, but for obesity instead of cancer.
- tamimio 2y ago
  > saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people It was never about saving lives.
- mcphage 2y ago
  > I've had fantasies of doing another 1-3 years COVID style, but putting all 2 trillion dollars into cancer research That's a good idea, you should do that. > instead of a vaccine that saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people So... you're not going to use any mRNA vaccine research?
createdapril24 2y ago
I think the article overstates its premise. The article makes an assumption that Ukraine has out-innovated Russia in terms of drones. That used to be true (in 2022-2023), with Ukraine's adapting low cost high availability commercial drones as weapons. However since the war has entered the long term Russia's industrial sector has outsupplied Ukraine in terms of quantity of drones, and has reached parity in terms of quality. The realities of the battlefield has seen the cheap and available commercial drones ineffective against mitigations (electronic warfare, surveillance and counter-battery, out-ranging and out-timing). Therefore the contest around drones has moved from quantity of commercial drones to cost-effective quality of drones in the face of countermeasures. This has even pushed some areas of the front to stop using FPV drones (on both sides) in favor of more traditional military drones. The point of this is actually one of cost. Drones are effective weapons in large part due to their cost-effectiveness. As frequency-hopping modems, larger processors, and multi-frequency antennas are added to cheap drones they start getting expensive - to the point the cost-effectiveness suffers and their drawbacks start becoming more serious. The article lists drone missions: mine clearing, evacuation, aerial drones, land drones, demining drones, ... . These are mainly overstretches. In terms of how drones have actually been employed in the war, there are naval drones which have been effective at holding Russia's Black Sea Fleet at risk, there are FPV drones which have been used primarily to stall the frontline defensively, and there are long range drones (not mentioned) that are used as an alternative to e.g. ballistic and cruise missiles. There are R&D projects, many of them failed at employing drones for many missions. There are some partial successes in using them to lay mines (and fake mines). But there isn't as much success in using them for de-mining. Lifting a person for evac is very challenging to do with a drone, especially an autonomous one. Somehow "surveillance" doesn't make the list, but probably the #1 contribution/mission of drones is battlefield visibility. The article compares taking 200 artillery shells to kill a building, vs 1 drone to kill a soldier. This is not only inaccurate, but it's apples-to-oranges. Drones have not replaced artillery in the Russo-Ukraine war and they aren't going to. Drones cannot be massed because they interfere with one another in the electromagnetic spectrum. They also require a significant number of people to operate compared to artillery. The munitions on drones are far less powerful than artillery (e.g. drones have trouble destroying armor, artillery doesn't). Simple means (mesh, nets, smoke) can shut down drones - but have nothing on artillery. There's so much to say here but it's not even comparable and the article bases its primary takeaways from this incorrect assumption. The article discusses that drones can fly "up to 22km". It doesn't mention that these require re-transmitter drones, which need separate pilots, separate modems, logistics coordination and ultimately - a much higher price tag. It can be worth it for certain missions, but it's hardly true that innovation has somehow created drones that are just better units. It's more that the employment of drones in warfare has gotten better - the command and control has gotten better. The artificial intelligence aspect of drones is typically a "terminal flight system", one that can take over to seek non-moving targets once EW has shut down communications. While its true that Russia and Ukraine both use terminal flight guidance systems to deal with the "last mile" of EW cover, its nearly impossible to use this to hit moving targets or to hit vehicles with armor in the areas that are needed to achieve disablement or a kill. The DoD has applied Project Maven to solve the problem the article discusses: automatically identifying targets to strike (which honestly applies to more than just drones - can be used for artillery, etc). Unfortunately Project Maven has been disappointingly significantly less accurate than human analysts at identifying battlefield targets on the same imagery. I could go on, but I think the article is kind of stuck in 2022? There's a certain pitch one can make for drones, and Ukraine is making that pitch. But I suspect the author might have too narrow a set of sources or some kind of biased interest, for what they are writing about.
FpUser 2y ago
>"Six days a week – they take Sunday off – his team of 36 employees can produce an average of 360 drones per day. But although they have a manufacturing capacity of 10,000 drones a month, they’re producing just 3,000. The Ukrainian government doesn’t pre-pay for orders, leaving manufacturers to come up with the capital to produce their drones. Without more funds, they’re unable to make more than a few thousand a month. This lack of upfront money is a problem, Mykhailo said. " 10's of billions were given to Ukraine. How come there is not enough money to pay for what seems to be very cheap and effective weapon?
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  Most of what was given to Ukraine wasn't cash. The US gave mostly military equipment that would otherwise have been decommissioned (which would have cost). The media just likes to list summarize this as a dollar amount which is somewhat misleading but understandable.
- giantrobot 2y ago
  Ukraine wasn't just handed sacks of cash with dollar signs on the side. They've been getting X billions worth of lend-lease equipment, supplies, and training. This gives the Ukrainian government equipment and training but they've still got to provide the personnel and pay them. They also need to pay for whatever equipment they want that's not lend-lease, including their own drones.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    To add some interesting context on the lend-lease act: The US gave Britain $32 billion under the lend-lease act during WWII. Britain make its last payment to the US for this in December 2006. The US actually got the money back. It's not some charity disguised to appease tax payers. It's really great!
  - kiba 2y ago
    This is false, Ukraine did not use land-lease. This was IMO a mistake, especially in hindsight about the delay of US Aid to Ukraine.
redder23 2y ago
[dead]
tamimio 2y ago
> swarms of drones are being developed such that they can fly to a designated “kill box,” find and identify enemy tanks, then destroy them – all without any human pilot interaction. I remember I mentioned that this the future of drones few years ago and everyone in the seminar laughed about it, but it’s a reality now. The next one is AI deciding what to target, which I believe is already in place as Israel is using it already, and apparently failing miserably with all the civilians casualties.
- woah 2y ago
  What's worse: a bomb destroying everything in a certain radius, or a drone killing all enemy combatants in that same radius with a 10% false positive rate?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  > I believe is already in place as Israel is using it already, and apparently failing miserably with all the civilians casualties. I don't think we have the data to reliably determine the impact of Israel's AI usage on civilian casualties. Sam Harris this week had an expert for urban and subterranean warfare from West Point on. He explained that it's impossible to get accurate numbers this quickly. In Mosul we apparently didn't have any numbers till a year after the battle ended. The ones we eventually got had huge error margins. This is before we even talk about ability to trust the source of the numbers. He further makes the point that the reported numbers we have right now are astonishingly low given we are talking about a war in a dense urban area, especially once we consider that Hamas has dug a huge tunnel system under civilian infrastructure to which civilians don't get access for shelter. The expert's explanations on the show are worth every minute of it. Sauce: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366-urban-warfare-2-0 https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366...
  - omnimus 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
omnimus 2y ago
China where all the parts are made started to control export of them to control use on Ukraine side. Quite few european NGOs have been buying parts on aliexpress, soldering and supplying drones to ukraine. China is trying to cut that off and next step probably will have to be crowd sourcing them to circumvent that (instead money donate these parts from these links). On the other hand Russia has addopted the same tactic and now have flow of drones estimated to be atleast 2x more drones than ukraine.
Deluded 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Deluded 2y ago
[flagged]
huhuhu111 2y ago
[dead]

57 points by jseliger 2y ago

Ukraine hitting oil processing plants in Russia using drones has been pretty effective in increasingly crippling Putin's money making machine that feeds his war. And sea drones already practically removed Russian navy from openly operating in the Black sea.

createdapril24 2y ago
Overall oil refineries are decent targets because they are high cost and statically located and therefore difficult to defend, but Ukraine certainly wishes it had more conventional weapons at longer ranges so that it could strike deeper and dynamic targets. Ukraine doesn't have many better alternatives. They can strike some energy infrastructure (which they've done) in an effort to affect Russian willpower. It can also try to hit airfields (which they've done) hoping to take out equipment, but Russia has been pretty good at moving equipment out of the way. The strike campaign itself has been moderately effective but definitely short of a war-winning enterprise. Estimates on the actual damage on production and exports has ranged between the fantastical (28%) to the banal (6%). It looks like domestic petrol supply has been hit the hardest in terms of tangible economic costs, since oil prices have remained reasonable with lessened seasonal demand and lower OPEC supply targets. Russia has additionally made deals with Kazakhstan and Belarus to attempt to mitigate some of the economic effects, has been able to repair oil refinery damage, and has experimented with a range of mitigations. The strike campaign has been further complicated by the US election year. The Biden Administration has asked Ukraine to stop targeting oil refineries, because global oil instability could cause a crisis that ultimately causes global issues, rising prices, and Biden a second term. Such strikes are expected to uptick after November. And with the possibility of long range missiles from military sponsors, plus winter-time difficulties, this might be a good window to see what Ukraine can really do. Either way I think the article is not about the long range drones you are alluding to here, but the small commercial sized drones and mid-cost military drones that are based on them.
- shmerl 2y ago
  Even those percentages of dropping oil profits can be pretty crippling for Putin. Especially since they can repeatedly hit what Putin wastes resources on repairing. And they should continue doing that even more. But they surely need more effective ways to take out Russian military airplanes, especially those which are bombing the front line and cities. Not sure why allies can't supply them with needed technology to do it - they should possess some.
  - unclebucknasty 2y ago
    Russia's latest tactic uses fairly massive old-school dumb bombs, retrofitted with satellite guidance kits. These glide bombs are said to be launched by aircraft from high altitude, just outside of Ukraine's radar range. They have thus far proven highly effective and very difficult to intercept. Not sure F-16s would help here in patrolling closer to launch points and intercepting the aircraft prior to dropping their payloads; or whether they would be too vulnerable. But, it does seem like a job for stealth interceptors, and certainly makes the case for air superiority.
    - tim333 2y ago
      With F16s it rather depends what air to air missiles they are supplied with. There are some that could take out Russian planes from a fair distance. But I'll give you stealth would be better. I'm surprised at how wimpy the west has been with air support - two years in and not an F16 in action. If they'd lent a couple of F35s with volunteer pilots it could have given Russia something to think about.
      - unclebucknasty 2y ago
        Yeah, no doubt the F-16s would be equipped with appropriately-ranged missles. The question is around their own vulnerability while patrolling/acquiring targets. Seems to imply a job for stealth, or otherwise establishing air superiority. But, even with the latter the outcome might be variable—especially for eastern / northern Ukranian targets—without incursion into hostile (Russian or Belarusian) airspace. Agree 100% on Western support. Seems we've been fighting to "not escalate" versus fighting to win. But, it's already a war with Ukrainian cities being pounded. In this context, "not escalating" seems to be a euphemism for "losing".
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

stevenwoo 2y ago

The AI part in this piece seems a bit premature, as far as I can tell from the promotional videos of successful combat, all of the drones are piloted. The more interesting thing is how each combat brigade for Ukraine (and one can only assume something similar for Russia) has drone operators in addition to the dedicated drone support units as detailed here: https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpkeyjwkpm/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/DRONES/dwpke... Does anyone know if any NATO countries are adapting to this or ideas to break the stalemate on the frontline where neither side can use armored vehicles very effectively due to their drone vulnerability besides the Russians throwing men and equipment into the grinder to soak up Ukrainian ammunition?

eru 2y ago
NATO countries rely on massive air superiority. Something neither side in that war has, hence their stalemate. NATO armed forces have comparatively small amounts of armoured ground vehicles and artillery. They need to and want to learn from the current war, but still keep in mind that their circumstances are different.
- riku_iki 2y ago
  US has air superiority. Other NATO air forces are likely weaker than Russians.
  - eru 2y ago
    Maybe weaker than Russia before the war? They have been bled dry since. But it doesn't really matter: collective defense is the whole point of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
    - riku_iki 2y ago
      > But it doesn't really matter: collective defense is the whole point of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I am not certain US will enter war with Russia in case of some escalation with European countries, especially if Trump will be elected.

resource_waste 2y ago

Was it the urgency of war? Or the non-market money that poured in? I've had fantasies of doing another 1-3 years COVID style, but putting all 2 trillion dollars into cancer research instead of a vaccine that saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people. (or swap it with global warming cures, whatever you want to mobilize the world on)

eru 2y ago
I guess Ozempic is the closest thing to that vision, but for obesity instead of cancer.
tamimio 2y ago
> saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people It was never about saving lives.
mcphage 2y ago
> I've had fantasies of doing another 1-3 years COVID style, but putting all 2 trillion dollars into cancer research That's a good idea, you should do that. > instead of a vaccine that saves 1% of old, obese, and sick people So... you're not going to use any mRNA vaccine research?

createdapril24 2y ago

I think the article overstates its premise. The article makes an assumption that Ukraine has out-innovated Russia in terms of drones. That used to be true (in 2022-2023), with Ukraine's adapting low cost high availability commercial drones as weapons. However since the war has entered the long term Russia's industrial sector has outsupplied Ukraine in terms of quantity of drones, and has reached parity in terms of quality. The realities of the battlefield has seen the cheap and available commercial drones ineffective against mitigations (electronic warfare, surveillance and counter-battery, out-ranging and out-timing). Therefore the contest around drones has moved from quantity of commercial drones to cost-effective quality of drones in the face of countermeasures. This has even pushed some areas of the front to stop using FPV drones (on both sides) in favor of more traditional military drones. The point of this is actually one of cost. Drones are effective weapons in large part due to their cost-effectiveness. As frequency-hopping modems, larger processors, and multi-frequency antennas are added to cheap drones they start getting expensive - to the point the cost-effectiveness suffers and their drawbacks start becoming more serious. The article lists drone missions: mine clearing, evacuation, aerial drones, land drones, demining drones, ... . These are mainly overstretches. In terms of how drones have actually been employed in the war, there are naval drones which have been effective at holding Russia's Black Sea Fleet at risk, there are FPV drones which have been used primarily to stall the frontline defensively, and there are long range drones (not mentioned) that are used as an alternative to e.g. ballistic and cruise missiles. There are R&D projects, many of them failed at employing drones for many missions. There are some partial successes in using them to lay mines (and fake mines). But there isn't as much success in using them for de-mining. Lifting a person for evac is very challenging to do with a drone, especially an autonomous one. Somehow "surveillance" doesn't make the list, but probably the #1 contribution/mission of drones is battlefield visibility. The article compares taking 200 artillery shells to kill a building, vs 1 drone to kill a soldier. This is not only inaccurate, but it's apples-to-oranges. Drones have not replaced artillery in the Russo-Ukraine war and they aren't going to. Drones cannot be massed because they interfere with one another in the electromagnetic spectrum. They also require a significant number of people to operate compared to artillery. The munitions on drones are far less powerful than artillery (e.g. drones have trouble destroying armor, artillery doesn't). Simple means (mesh, nets, smoke) can shut down drones - but have nothing on artillery. There's so much to say here but it's not even comparable and the article bases its primary takeaways from this incorrect assumption. The article discusses that drones can fly "up to 22km". It doesn't mention that these require re-transmitter drones, which need separate pilots, separate modems, logistics coordination and ultimately - a much higher price tag. It can be worth it for certain missions, but it's hardly true that innovation has somehow created drones that are just better units. It's more that the employment of drones in warfare has gotten better - the command and control has gotten better. The artificial intelligence aspect of drones is typically a "terminal flight system", one that can take over to seek non-moving targets once EW has shut down communications. While its true that Russia and Ukraine both use terminal flight guidance systems to deal with the "last mile" of EW cover, its nearly impossible to use this to hit moving targets or to hit vehicles with armor in the areas that are needed to achieve disablement or a kill. The DoD has applied Project Maven to solve the problem the article discusses: automatically identifying targets to strike (which honestly applies to more than just drones - can be used for artillery, etc). Unfortunately Project Maven has been disappointingly significantly less accurate than human analysts at identifying battlefield targets on the same imagery. I could go on, but I think the article is kind of stuck in 2022? There's a certain pitch one can make for drones, and Ukraine is making that pitch. But I suspect the author might have too narrow a set of sources or some kind of biased interest, for what they are writing about.

FpUser 2y ago

>"Six days a week – they take Sunday off – his team of 36 employees can produce an average of 360 drones per day. But although they have a manufacturing capacity of 10,000 drones a month, they’re producing just 3,000. The Ukrainian government doesn’t pre-pay for orders, leaving manufacturers to come up with the capital to produce their drones. Without more funds, they’re unable to make more than a few thousand a month. This lack of upfront money is a problem, Mykhailo said. " 10's of billions were given to Ukraine. How come there is not enough money to pay for what seems to be very cheap and effective weapon?

ajmurmann 2y ago
Most of what was given to Ukraine wasn't cash. The US gave mostly military equipment that would otherwise have been decommissioned (which would have cost). The media just likes to list summarize this as a dollar amount which is somewhat misleading but understandable.
giantrobot 2y ago
Ukraine wasn't just handed sacks of cash with dollar signs on the side. They've been getting X billions worth of lend-lease equipment, supplies, and training. This gives the Ukrainian government equipment and training but they've still got to provide the personnel and pay them. They also need to pay for whatever equipment they want that's not lend-lease, including their own drones.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  To add some interesting context on the lend-lease act: The US gave Britain $32 billion under the lend-lease act during WWII. Britain make its last payment to the US for this in December 2006. The US actually got the money back. It's not some charity disguised to appease tax payers. It's really great!
- kiba 2y ago
  This is false, Ukraine did not use land-lease. This was IMO a mistake, especially in hindsight about the delay of US Aid to Ukraine.

redder23 2y ago

[dead]

tamimio 2y ago

> swarms of drones are being developed such that they can fly to a designated “kill box,” find and identify enemy tanks, then destroy them – all without any human pilot interaction. I remember I mentioned that this the future of drones few years ago and everyone in the seminar laughed about it, but it’s a reality now. The next one is AI deciding what to target, which I believe is already in place as Israel is using it already, and apparently failing miserably with all the civilians casualties.

woah 2y ago
What's worse: a bomb destroying everything in a certain radius, or a drone killing all enemy combatants in that same radius with a 10% false positive rate?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ajmurmann 2y ago
> I believe is already in place as Israel is using it already, and apparently failing miserably with all the civilians casualties. I don't think we have the data to reliably determine the impact of Israel's AI usage on civilian casualties. Sam Harris this week had an expert for urban and subterranean warfare from West Point on. He explained that it's impossible to get accurate numbers this quickly. In Mosul we apparently didn't have any numbers till a year after the battle ended. The ones we eventually got had huge error margins. This is before we even talk about ability to trust the source of the numbers. He further makes the point that the reported numbers we have right now are astonishingly low given we are talking about a war in a dense urban area, especially once we consider that Hamas has dug a huge tunnel system under civilian infrastructure to which civilians don't get access for shelter. The expert's explanations on the show are worth every minute of it. Sauce: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366-urban-warfare-2-0 https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366...
- omnimus 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

omnimus 2y ago

China where all the parts are made started to control export of them to control use on Ukraine side. Quite few european NGOs have been buying parts on aliexpress, soldering and supplying drones to ukraine. China is trying to cut that off and next step probably will have to be crowd sourcing them to circumvent that (instead money donate these parts from these links). On the other hand Russia has addopted the same tactic and now have flow of drones estimated to be atleast 2x more drones than ukraine.

Deluded 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Deluded 2y ago

[flagged]

huhuhu111 2y ago

[dead]