With Congress deadlocked on whether to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional aid for Ukraine, that nation's domestic arms industry is becoming increasingly important. Perhaps the most vital weapons system it's producing is an army of drones. Nick Schifrin and videographer Eric O’Connor visited the frontline in southern Ukraine to understand how drones have transformed the war.
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William Brangham:
With Congress deadlocked on whether to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional aid for Ukraine, that nation's domestic arms industry is becoming increasingly important. And perhaps the most vital weapons system it's producing is an army of drones.
Nick Schifrin and videographer Eric O'Connor the front line in Southern Ukraine to understand how drones have transformed this war.
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Nick Schifrin:
In war, there's never a safe space. But, in this war, when the eyes in the sky are unblinking, the hunters are also the hunted.
Why are we staying under the trees?
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Lt. Ashot Artiunian, Ukrainian Soldier (through interpreter):
Because there are drones flying all the time. Come under the trees. Above us, there are a lot of drones. That's why we constantly need to be under trees.
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Nick Schifrin:
Lieutenant Ashot Artiunian's call sign is Doc, a reference to his Ph.D. in artificial intelligence. His day job is leading this volunteer drone unit on Ukraine's southern front, their weapons, a MacBook Pro, a tablet with real-time intelligence of Russian positions, and a Ukrainian drone made of foam.
It's held together with duct tape, but in a hundred billion-dollar-plus war, it can help destroy millions of dollars of Russian equipment. And above the field of sunflowers that have become symbol of Ukraine's resistance, Ukraine's latest homemade invention takes flight.
It's flown by a three-person team who crowdfund their equipment, a 23-year-old from Lviv who goes by Gremlin, call sign Hacker, who we're keeping anonymous because his family is under Russian occupation, and an Lithuanian named Zinger. In this drone war, each side tries to jam the other's drone using electronic warfare.
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Zinger, Ukrainian Soldier:
We lost the view. They jammed the frequency, which I cannot disclose. There's one frequency. So we have the opportunity to quickly switch to other frequency, so we continue with the view.
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Nick Schifrin:
And how often does that happen, they try and hit the drone with electronic warfare?
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Zinger:
All this like nonstop. We're losing drones this way, and they're jamming all the time.
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Nick Schifrin:
Earlier in the war, outside Bakhmut, they lost nearly a drone a day. In total, Ukraine's armed forces has been losing 10,000 drones a month. U.S. officials admit they don't have an answer for Russia's superior electronic warfare.
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Zinger:
The Russians will drive a freaking truck of this kind of equipment. It's old-school, yes, but it's going to be like many times more powerful than this modern Western equipment.
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Gremlin, Ukrainian Soldier:
Yes, actually, Russian radio electronic warfare is really good.
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Nick Schifrin:
For two hours, they fly dozens of miles behind enemy lines, hunting for Russian vehicles and the jamming devices that are hunting them.
The live video feedback is black and white and isn't great quality. But there's a second higher-quality camera on the drone that they watch afterward back at base.
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Gremlin:
Now it's the most — probably one of the most important parts of our job.
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Nick Schifrin:
In the room where they sleep in an undisclosed location 10 miles away, the team combs through video their drone just filmed.
They compare today's video with satellite or drone images from yesterday, like this Russian vehicle.
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Gremlin:
Here, we noticed it's big truck, used for bringing ammo or something like that. So, now we will put it into the system as a target. I put the target, the coordinates of the targets, put the information about it, and then I upload this information.
It's definitely something new. We haven't seen it yesterday.
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Nick Schifrin:
And then they notice their nemesis, the vehicle that jams their drone.
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Gremlin:
We suspect that it can be radio-electronic warfare system. Looking at the shadows, you can notice that there are seen antennas.
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Nick Schifrin:
Oh, wow.
They sent the image to artillery brigades via the encrypted messaging app Signal. And a few hours later, another drone watched as a Ukrainian shell destroyed the Russian vehicle.
Drones have changed this war and warfare, as Ukrainians have bragged about online with highly produced videos, from small bombs dropped from drones to FPV, or first-person view, drones that can crash into military vehicles or fly through the back of disabled vehicles. Cheap drones destroy expensive equipment.
But it goes both ways. Russian videos show how Russian drones help stop Ukraine's counteroffensive. The U.S. assumed that Ukraine could succeed by combining the massing of vehicles with the movement of troops. Russian drones helped find and destroy the Western supplies that were supposed to break through Russian defenses.
And Russian drones menace Ukrainian buildings and critical infrastructure as far west as Lviv.
In many ways, is this a war of drones?
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Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukrainian Minister For Digital Transformation (through interpreter):
Today and tomorrow is about drones. The outcome of this war depends on how many drones there will be and how they will be used.
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Nick Schifrin:
Mykhailo Fedorov is Ukraine's deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformation, who's in charge of Ukraine's effort to create an army of drones.
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Mykhailo Fedorov (through interpreter):
An incredibly large industry was born in Ukraine in one year and has a large potential to scale up.
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Nick Schifrin:
Is Russia also doing the same?
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Mykhailo Fedorov (through interpreter):
Yes, this war is turning into a war of engineers and a war of economies. And whoever improves the level of development of their product will gain an advantage on the battlefield, will lose less people and will hit targets more effectively. We have to do everything to win the war of technologies.
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Nick Schifrin:
Ukraine will need to win that war with its own industry.
This is Airlogix, a drone company in an undisclosed warehouse in Kyiv. It's one of 200 domestic manufacturers that have increased local production more than 100 times. Before the war, they designed cargo drones. Today, they work for Ukraine's military.
Vitalli Kolesnichenko, Founder and Manager, Airlogix (through interpreter): Basically, we had no choice because we have to defend the motherland as best we can.
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Nick Schifrin:
Vitalli Kolesnichenko is Airlogix's founder and manager.
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Vitalli Kolesnichenko (through interpreter):
Wherever you look in every garage, something is being made for the needs of the armed forces in the context of drones. They are being developed everywhere in Ukraine. I believe that this is already the start of Ukraine becoming the world center of drone development.
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Nick Schifrin:
Airlogix produces 12 to 15 drones per month. One of their newest is lightweight, its parts cut with a laser out of lightweight wood and with a 3-D printer out of rubber.
Their flagship is a reconnaissance drone called the GOR that can fly for 25 miles at over 10,000 feet. It's launched by catapult and uses artificial intelligence to try and track possible targets.
Do you know what your long-range drones are being used for?
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Vitalli Kolesnichenko (through interpreter):
No. It's classified.
(Laughter)
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Nick Schifrin:
Ukraine has used long-range drones to attack Russian bases and supply lines inside Russia. They have also struck the heart of Moscow.
Long term, developing long-range drones that scale and bringing the war to Russia's elite may be the best way to turn the war's tide. And Ukraine has also used naval drones to attack Russian ships. That has helped Ukraine push the Russian fleet far enough back to open up Ukrainian Black Sea shipping lanes.
But Ukraine has a long way to go to build enough drones. And, as U.S. financing is threatened, it will be increasingly up to Ukraine's domestic industry to help win a drone war where innovation and adaptation happens every day on the front line.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine.
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