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The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so (and probably cannot carry enough explosive that far to help much with an attack like

The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so (and probably cannot carry enough explosive that far to help much with an attack like yesterday's attack) thus the need for the Ukrainians to use trucks to transport the drones used in this attack to within a km or so of the target. It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian (e.g., if stopped at a checkpoint inside Russia) because there were 3 million Ukrainians living inside Russia at the start of the invasion in 2022. The same cannot be said for many future conflicts. To give an example, the German regime got almost no useful information coming from spies in England during WWII because it proved easy for British society to detect and capture German spies. It probably would have proved equally difficult or almost as difficult and risky for the Germans to get a truck loaded with drones, explosives, drone operators and the electronics needed to control the drones to within a km of an English military target (if the citizenry knew about drones the way we in 2025 know about them).

justsomehnguy 1y ago
> It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian There is no need to do so because they did employ a civilian drivers who never knew what 'cargo' they are hauling. Just like in the previous attack on the bridge.
- hollerith 1y ago
  I was assuming that the drone operators were in the truck to make it more difficult for the Russians to jam the control signals. Do you know whether that is true? Maybe the drones were pre-programmed for a particular destination (given to the Ukrainians by the US and its reconnaissance satellites), i.e., no drone operators needed.
  - lawn 1y ago
    The operators weren't present at the site. They either used the trucks as a relay for the operators far away or the drones themselves were automated.
  - mdhb 1y ago
    The latest technique is (besides the fiber optic stuff) is running the command and control over the local phone network of the country you’re in so it just looks like regular mobile data. That’s what allegedly happened here.
    - maxgashkov 1y ago
      According to videos published they still seem to be flying drones manually, so won't additional latency introduced by the cellular network & repeaters make this really hard / impossible?
      - tonyarkles 1y ago
        I don’t have a link handy but one of the videos I saw on Twitter looked like there was pretty bad latency. Once they got to the target aircraft they went into a hover and very slowly set it down on the wing before the FPV feed froze. Edit: https://x.com/jimmysecuk/status/1929164382061092952 https://x.com/jimmysecuk/status/1929164382061092952
        mrheosuper 1y ago
        they were using ardupilot, so the control they gave is "move to this point then descend", latency does not matter much as long as it's reasonable.
        tonyarkles 1y ago
        In most of the videos I've seen there are failsafe warnings on the screen indicating a loss of GPS, which I'm not surprised at all about. Russia's well-known for having GPS jammers, and having them on-site at an airforce base when the enemy they've been fighting is using drones is just common sense. The video I linked to really looks to me like it's being stick flown with IMU stabilization but probably without Pos Hold.
        mmooss 1y ago
        Why land slowly if the plan is to blow up the drone?
- andix 1y ago
  Someone still needs to hire the driver and set up everything. Much easier for someone that can just blend in, looks like everyone else, speaks the language and doesn’t only know the culture well, but even grew up in a similar culture.
  - ponector 1y ago
    >> someone that can just blend in, looks like everyone else, speaks the language and doesn’t only know the culture well, but even grew up in a similar culture. You've described half of the Ukrainian population.
sureglymop 1y ago
Drones also easily get jammed. Which is why both sides are using cable based drones with spools of fiber optics cable.
- anigbrowl 1y ago
  It's only a matter of time before they go fully autonomous. The technology exists now and tbh I'd be surprised if it hasn't been deployed already.
  - solid_fuel 1y ago
    We have already hit that point - https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm
- slt2021 1y ago
  nvidia chip and yolo model and you get autonomous drone
  - hagbard_c 1y ago
    ...which can barely get off the ground due to the power consumption of that 'NVidia chip' and gives off the heat signature of a jet-powered drone once it manages to get airborne. Nah, you don't need an 'NVidia chip' for this purpose, a reasonably modern mobile phone will do and has all the sensors you want. Just add a battery, 4 motors with propellers and something (other than the battery) which goes boom and voilà, an autonomous drone. Some [1] mobile [2] phones [3] even have their own thing-that-goes-boom [4] built in from the factory to make this project even easier to accomplish. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoU2mXJJ3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoU2mXJJ3k [2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252212685 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252212685 [3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6281000/iphone-explosion-video-phone-fire/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6281000/iphone-explosion-video... [4] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250125537 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250125537
    - 1y ago
ClumsyPilot 1y ago
> It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian It would not be necessary, as you pointed out, plenty of Ukrainians still live in Russia and they are free to drive trucks. Best of my knowledge, there is nothing like interment of Japanese that happened in US during WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
- drysine 1y ago
  You can't really distinguish Ukrainian from Russians, unless it's a Ukrainian from former Polish territories or some rural regions.
  - wltr 1y ago
    As far as I’m aware, the USSR (read: Russia) forced everyone to know Russian, and not just know, but know only Russian and forget their own languages and culture. So, most of the populations once occupied by Russia, they can pretend they’re Russians quite easily, especially when they look European. Including former Polish territories. They had plenty of Russian occupation too.
    - drysine 1y ago
      You are mistaken. I don't blame you - it's a common narrative of Russophobic propaganda. I'd suggest reading "The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939" by Terry Martin [0] "The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products.This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state." [0] https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501713323/html https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7591/97815017...
wisty 1y ago
In WWII, a joint Australian / British force carried out an attack, posing as Japanese fishing boat, and sailed right into Singapore harbour to place explosives on the vessels there. They flew a Japanese ensign, wore sarongs and wore tan makeup. Operation Jaywick was not a huge strategic success (and the local population was subject to reprisals since the Japanese thought it was their fault) but it did raise morale a lot in allied forces, as it was an early blow against Japan (which had seemed invincible at the time). Even in the extreme example of white Australians trying to pass as Malaysians, special forces have pulled of plenty of raids without the need for native language speakers. Even if you need someone highly fluent who can pass as a native, most of the time there's a nearby country where they have some kind of grudge against the belligerent. I can think of a lot of potential theatres where finding an enemy of a belligerent who can pass as a "native" would not be difficult. North / South Korea, China / Taiwan, The Middle East ... conflicts often occur in places where there's a lot of conflict. Also, in a war, often the military and civilian sector are stretched thin. Russia can't spare the troops to guard everything as well as they could in peacetime, and even if they could search every vehicle they can't afford to gum up their logistics.
m463 1y ago
why can't drones park on or near power lines and inductively charge?
- ncr100 1y ago
  Would be kinda neat to see drones hanging off power lines like bats.
- phito 1y ago
  Power lines mess up your communication signals.
- marssaxman 1y ago
  This Danish group is building drones for power line inspection which do exactly that: https://drones4energy.dk/ https://drones4energy.dk/
k_bx 1y ago
> The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so As a Ukrainian soldier – ha ha ha
- wltr 1y ago
  Thank you for your service, sir!
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 1y ago
> The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so (and probably cannot carry enough explosive that far to help much with an attack like yesterday's attack) You are completely, utterly clueless.
skinkestek 1y ago
Even the longest recorded strike with fibre optic seems to be a lot longer than that.
- hollerith 1y ago
  Battery powered though? And "like a helicopter with multiple rotors" (term?) as opposed to like an airplane with wings and elevators?
  - skinkestek 1y ago
    I am not aware of any fibre optic drones that aren't battery powered.
    - hollerith 1y ago
      OK, thanks.

justsomehnguy 1y ago

> It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian There is no need to do so because they did employ a civilian drivers who never knew what 'cargo' they are hauling. Just like in the previous attack on the bridge.

hollerith 1y ago
I was assuming that the drone operators were in the truck to make it more difficult for the Russians to jam the control signals. Do you know whether that is true? Maybe the drones were pre-programmed for a particular destination (given to the Ukrainians by the US and its reconnaissance satellites), i.e., no drone operators needed.
- lawn 1y ago
  The operators weren't present at the site. They either used the trucks as a relay for the operators far away or the drones themselves were automated.
- mdhb 1y ago
  The latest technique is (besides the fiber optic stuff) is running the command and control over the local phone network of the country you’re in so it just looks like regular mobile data. That’s what allegedly happened here.
  - maxgashkov 1y ago
    According to videos published they still seem to be flying drones manually, so won't additional latency introduced by the cellular network & repeaters make this really hard / impossible?
    - tonyarkles 1y ago
      I don’t have a link handy but one of the videos I saw on Twitter looked like there was pretty bad latency. Once they got to the target aircraft they went into a hover and very slowly set it down on the wing before the FPV feed froze. Edit: https://x.com/jimmysecuk/status/1929164382061092952 https://x.com/jimmysecuk/status/1929164382061092952
      - mrheosuper 1y ago
        they were using ardupilot, so the control they gave is "move to this point then descend", latency does not matter much as long as it's reasonable.
        tonyarkles 1y ago
        In most of the videos I've seen there are failsafe warnings on the screen indicating a loss of GPS, which I'm not surprised at all about. Russia's well-known for having GPS jammers, and having them on-site at an airforce base when the enemy they've been fighting is using drones is just common sense. The video I linked to really looks to me like it's being stick flown with IMU stabilization but probably without Pos Hold.
      - mmooss 1y ago
        Why land slowly if the plan is to blow up the drone?
andix 1y ago
Someone still needs to hire the driver and set up everything. Much easier for someone that can just blend in, looks like everyone else, speaks the language and doesn’t only know the culture well, but even grew up in a similar culture.
- ponector 1y ago
  >> someone that can just blend in, looks like everyone else, speaks the language and doesn’t only know the culture well, but even grew up in a similar culture. You've described half of the Ukrainian population.

sureglymop 1y ago

Drones also easily get jammed. Which is why both sides are using cable based drones with spools of fiber optics cable.

anigbrowl 1y ago
It's only a matter of time before they go fully autonomous. The technology exists now and tbh I'd be surprised if it hasn't been deployed already.
- solid_fuel 1y ago
  We have already hit that point - https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm https://www.livescience.com/ai-drone-attack-libya.htm
slt2021 1y ago
nvidia chip and yolo model and you get autonomous drone
- hagbard_c 1y ago
  ...which can barely get off the ground due to the power consumption of that 'NVidia chip' and gives off the heat signature of a jet-powered drone once it manages to get airborne. Nah, you don't need an 'NVidia chip' for this purpose, a reasonably modern mobile phone will do and has all the sensors you want. Just add a battery, 4 motors with propellers and something (other than the battery) which goes boom and voilà, an autonomous drone. Some [1] mobile [2] phones [3] even have their own thing-that-goes-boom [4] built in from the factory to make this project even easier to accomplish. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoU2mXJJ3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcoU2mXJJ3k [2] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252212685 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252212685 [3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6281000/iphone-explosion-video-phone-fire/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6281000/iphone-explosion-video... [4] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250125537 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250125537
  - 1y ago

ClumsyPilot 1y ago

> It is easy for Ukrainians to pass for Russian It would not be necessary, as you pointed out, plenty of Ukrainians still live in Russia and they are free to drive trucks. Best of my knowledge, there is nothing like interment of Japanese that happened in US during WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...

drysine 1y ago
You can't really distinguish Ukrainian from Russians, unless it's a Ukrainian from former Polish territories or some rural regions.
- wltr 1y ago
  As far as I’m aware, the USSR (read: Russia) forced everyone to know Russian, and not just know, but know only Russian and forget their own languages and culture. So, most of the populations once occupied by Russia, they can pretend they’re Russians quite easily, especially when they look European. Including former Polish territories. They had plenty of Russian occupation too.
  - drysine 1y ago
    You are mistaken. I don't blame you - it's a common narrative of Russophobic propaganda. I'd suggest reading "The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939" by Terry Martin [0] "The Soviet Union was the first of Europe's multiethnic states to confront the rising tide of nationalism by systematically promoting the national consciousness of its ethnic minorities and establishing for them many of the institutional forms characteristic of the modern nation-state. In the 1920s, the Bolshevik government, seeking to defuse nationalist sentiment, created tens of thousands of national territories. It trained new national leaders, established national languages, and financed the production of national-language cultural products.This was a massive and fascinating historical experiment in governing a multiethnic state." [0] https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501713323/html https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7591/97815017...

wisty 1y ago

In WWII, a joint Australian / British force carried out an attack, posing as Japanese fishing boat, and sailed right into Singapore harbour to place explosives on the vessels there. They flew a Japanese ensign, wore sarongs and wore tan makeup. Operation Jaywick was not a huge strategic success (and the local population was subject to reprisals since the Japanese thought it was their fault) but it did raise morale a lot in allied forces, as it was an early blow against Japan (which had seemed invincible at the time). Even in the extreme example of white Australians trying to pass as Malaysians, special forces have pulled of plenty of raids without the need for native language speakers. Even if you need someone highly fluent who can pass as a native, most of the time there's a nearby country where they have some kind of grudge against the belligerent. I can think of a lot of potential theatres where finding an enemy of a belligerent who can pass as a "native" would not be difficult. North / South Korea, China / Taiwan, The Middle East ... conflicts often occur in places where there's a lot of conflict. Also, in a war, often the military and civilian sector are stretched thin. Russia can't spare the troops to guard everything as well as they could in peacetime, and even if they could search every vehicle they can't afford to gum up their logistics.

m463 1y ago

why can't drones park on or near power lines and inductively charge?

ncr100 1y ago
Would be kinda neat to see drones hanging off power lines like bats.
phito 1y ago
Power lines mess up your communication signals.
marssaxman 1y ago
This Danish group is building drones for power line inspection which do exactly that: https://drones4energy.dk/ https://drones4energy.dk/

k_bx 1y ago

> The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so As a Ukrainian soldier – ha ha ha

wltr 1y ago
Thank you for your service, sir!

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 1y ago

> The longest-range battery-powered drones have a range of only 14 km or so (and probably cannot carry enough explosive that far to help much with an attack like yesterday's attack) You are completely, utterly clueless.

skinkestek 1y ago

Even the longest recorded strike with fibre optic seems to be a lot longer than that.

hollerith 1y ago
Battery powered though? And "like a helicopter with multiple rotors" (term?) as opposed to like an airplane with wings and elevators?
- skinkestek 1y ago
  I am not aware of any fibre optic drones that aren't battery powered.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    OK, thanks.