Sky hunters. How anti-aircraft drones hunt enemy UAVs
Drones hunting enemy UAVs have become the latest twist in the battle of technologies. The war behind the controls and screens in a cozy dugout is somewhat reminiscent of a computer game, but the stakes are life itself. Frontliner visited the anti-drone drones of the 93rd Mechanized Brigade “Kholodny Yar” in the Donetsk direction and learned about the specifics of such hunting.
There are two men in the dugout. The cheerful and talkative “Balu” and, in contrast, the silent and calm “Vorobey.” The third member of the crew is sleeping in the next room after a night watch. “Kinder” has also come with the media to see his colleagues. While Balu and Vorobey shoot down enemy drones over the controlled territory, Kinder works in another position and destroys them behind enemy lines.
The guys are nervous — they have lost contact with the “bird” that flew out on a hunt. The image on the screen is black and white and motionless. They hope that the drone is still flying home. After a while, a joyful cry rings out: “Yes!” The image comes to life and takes on color. A minute later, a characteristic buzzing sound can be heard in the air. “Sparrow” runs outside and brings the drone inside.
‘Balu’ explains that the main work is being done on enemy “wings,” that is, aircraft-type UAVs: “On everything enemy that flies in the sky. The bastards shoot down our ‘wings’, they crash into our ‘wing’ with their drones. Our principle of operation is as follows: the radar detects the target, we get a rough idea of its location based on the terrain.”
We take off, locate the target visually, catch up with it and detonate ourselves directly in front of it.
“If we don’t detect the target or can’t catch up because the drone is physically limited in speed, we can return the drone. It’s FPV, but the explosion is only initiated from the remote control. Only the pilot can decide whether to blow up the drone or not. So if the target is not detected, we safely return it,” says the anti-aircraft gunner.
Russian Molniya drones fly regardless of weather conditions
There have been no hits today – the wind is making flying difficult. Recently, the Balu crew has had less work due to rain, which is not the case for the Kinder crew. Closer to zero, Russian Molniya drones fly regardless of weather conditions, so anti-aircraft drone operators have no rest. There are separate drones for night work, equipped with television cameras. They also maintain contact with adjacent units, and if they detect a target, they transmit the coordinates to the anti-aircraft gunners. The blast radius, and therefore the distance at which the target must be approached to be destroyed, depends on the charge. An FPV can be blown up a meter away from the target, but if possible, they try to get as close as possible.
For each drone shot down, if the fact of the shootdown is clearly recorded and proven, anti-aircraft gunners receive a bonus payment, which is a nice addition to their motivation.
Naming drones is a genre in itself. “Judgment Day,” “Karma,” and “Phoenix” are sent out to hunt Russian UAVs. Among the enemy drones that most often fall prey to Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners, Balu names the reconnaissance drones “Zali,” “Superkami,” “Lancets,” and “Rivets” as the most common.
“Recently, they have started to use Gerbera very often as a reconnaissance drone. It is faster, so it is a little harder to catch up with it. The boys used to shoot down Orlans, but now they are becoming increasingly rare,” Balu lists.
“Shahids” are faster than hunter drones
The targets include the Kub-2 and Mirage UAVs with artificial intelligence elements. So far, it has not been possible to shoot down the Shahids in this way, as the hunter drones are not fast enough. However, attempts continue, and technology is constantly evolving, so it is possible that Shahed drones will also become a target in the near future.
Meanwhile, there have also been cases of Zala drones equipped with a “parking sensor” — an additional rear camera that “sees” a drone approaching.
“The Zala performed the maneuver automatically; a pilot cannot do this. Sooner or later, he would tilt the plane a little too much and would not be able to level it. Of course, it disoriented our pilots, but then they got used to it and understood how the maneuver was performed, as it was always the same. Lately, I’ve seen that the Zalas are being used again without this camera, probably because it became more expensive to install than it was worth. The Superkams were equipped with spectrum analyzers that calculated the frequency at which you were flying, and when you flew close, they jammed your frequency,” says Balu.
If there is a choice between hitting the Lancet, a strike UAV, or the Zalu that controls it, the strike drone is obviously the priority. The flight range is limited by battery power and communication. You can fly 20 or even 30 km in one direction, but if you plan to return, it’s about 12 km one way. There are also incidents with drone landings. Several factors complicate flight calculations. First, you never know if you’re flying in one direction or if you’ll have to turn back. The battery life is also affected by the wind strength you have to overcome. Balu waves his hand:
“I was flying a drone in a boy’s yard. It didn’t make it back. And once in Druzhkivka, they fell on a factory. We went to pick them up the next day, and the guys said they almost got shot! It crashed right into the hangar from a height of a kilometer and a half, like it was shot down!“
How to become a drone operator
Balu has been in the army since 2020. Before that, he worked in a mine in Pavlohrad. He started as an anti-aircraft gunner, working on air targets from an anti-aircraft gun. The essence of the work has not changed during this time, only the means have changed. He explains that their crew performs air defense functions:
“Our work is as important as that of the entire air defense. Enemy ”wings,” whether reconnaissance or strike, all pose a potential threat. Strike aircraft are obvious, but reconnaissance aircraft are also dangerous, as they guide artillery and strike drones. Therefore, destroying these aircraft means protecting our personnel, not only in the rear but also on the front lines, our infantry,” the anti-aircraft gunner assures us.
The man cannot see himself in civilian life anymore. He says that if the war ended, he would go to fight somewhere else or, as a last resort, join the police.
“Vorobey” has been fighting since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Before that, he worked at DTEK, servicing critical infrastructure, and had the right not to join the army. However, he went anyway. He started as an anti-aircraft commander.
“Kinder” also started working with MANPADS, a portable anti-aircraft missile system, in 2022. Two years later, he joined his current platoon as a navigator-technician and began flying. He later trained and obtained a military qualification as a “multirotor FPV operator.” He recalls that the first target was shot down at the end of last year. It was “Zala.”
Kinder works in a position near Kostiantynivka. He says that sometimes they manage to shoot down three or four enemy “wings” in a single shift, but they also lose quite a few of their own UAVs:
“They (the Russians) have a special unit there called Rubicon. They post videos showing many of our wings being shot down. They have a different tactic. They ram our wings more,” explains Kinder.
Meanwhile, Vorobey stares intently at his tablet screen. Sometimes he says, “Target acquired!” Then ‘Balu’ sits down at the console. The anti-aircraft gunners exchange a few words, and the sound of a motor receding can be heard. After a while, the “bird” returns. Everyone goes out for a smoke break again.
We need to shoot down 1,000 enemy drones per month
Balu explains that they used to be able to receive information from two radars, but now they only have one. They usually use a radar manufactured by the Ukrainian company Poltavka. It was not “born for war”; its original purpose was to determine the weather. The radar readings can be inaccurate and delayed by up to 10 seconds. Therefore, the most difficult part of the process is to “see” the target through the camera.
The guys assure us that they have everything they need. Of course, they would always like to have more drones, radars, and ammunition, but they do not complain about the lack of resources. Most of the drones are funded by volunteers. Despite this, Balu is convinced that the efforts of the anti-aircraft gunners are not yet yielding sufficient results:
“To break the advantage of their reconnaissance UAVs in the sky, we need to shoot down up to a thousand unmanned aerial vehicles every month along the entire line of contact. Especially since they are producing UAVs at full capacity. So we still have a long way to go. We are still a long way from the point where we will all be attacking the same target. Unfortunately,” says the anti-aircraft gunner.
He recalls cases when enemy “Zal” drones were shot down at an altitude of 1,000 meters, which is critically low for such a UAV. This indicates one thing: its operator understood that the aircraft would be lost and went for it deliberately, given the combat necessity. So, the enemy is “packed” with expensive equipment and can afford to treat it as expendable. Therefore, to counteract this, we need more units like this. “Kinder” adds that enemy groups openly write about launching reconnaissance drones on a one-way mission.
Balu is convinced that the enemy knows the position of the anti-aircraft gunners here, and therefore fewer of their “iron birds” fly in this direction. The drone operators cover the sky with their presence. And the iron ‘birds’ acquire another function, that of “sanitation” and security.
Author: Olena Maksymenko
