Ukrainian long-range attacks bring war to Russia

Western technology and funding are helping Ukraine carry out hundreds of long-range attacks inside Russia.

This is despite NATO allies still not giving Ukraine permission to use Western-supplied weapons, mainly due to concerns about escalation.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range attacks inside Russia in recent months, launching large numbers of drones simultaneously at strategic targets several times a week.

Targets include air bases, oil and munitions depots, and command centers.

Ukrainian companies are now producing hundreds of armed, one-way strike drones per month for a fraction of the cost it would cost to produce similar drones in the West.

One company told the BBC that relatively little cost is already having a disproportionate impact on Russia’s defense economy.

The BBC has spoken to several people involved in these missions, including Ukraine’s largest manufacturer of one-way attack drones, and a big data company that helped Ukraine develop the software to carry out these attacks.

Francisco Serra-Martins says this strategy is already creating a big dilemma for Moscow, and he believes additional investments could tip the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor.

Eighteen months ago, the company he co-founded, Terminal Autonomy, didn’t even exist. The company now produces more than 100 long-range drones a month, the AQ400 Scythe, with a range of 750 kilometers. It also produces hundreds of short-range drones a month, the AQ100 Bayonet, which can fly for hundreds of kilometers.

The drone is made of wood and assembled in a former furniture factory in Ukraine.

Former Australian Royal Engineer Selah Martins founded the company with Ukrainian co-founders with US funding, and it is now one of at least three large-scale drone manufacturers in Ukraine.

He describes drones as “basically flying furniture that you put together like IKEA.”

It takes about an hour to assemble the fuselage, and half that time to install the brains inside it – the electronics, motors and explosives.

The company’s bayonet drones cost a few thousand dollars — in contrast, the Russian air defense missiles used to shoot them down can cost more than $1 million.

It’s not just cheap drones that are making a difference.

Palantir, a major US data and analytics company, is one of several Western tech companies that have begun supporting Ukraine’s war effort, initially by providing software to improve the speed and accuracy of artillery fire. Now, the company is giving Ukraine new tools to plan long-range drone attacks.

Palantir’s British engineers worked with Ukrainian engineers to design a program that would generate and map the best way to reach the target. Palantir has said it was not involved in the mission, but has helped train more than 1,000 Ukrainians in how to use its software.

The BBC was given a demonstration of how the system works in principle: the data stream can be used to map the locations of Russian air defences, radars and electronic jamming devices, with the final product resembling a topographical map.

The tighter the outline, the stronger the air defenses, and Ukraine has already pinpointed its location using commercial satellite imagery and signals intelligence.

Palantir’s Lewis Mosley said the program is helping Ukraine evade Russian electronic warfare and air defense systems to reach its targets.

“Understanding and visualizing what that looks like across the entire battlespace is critical to optimizing these missions,” he says.

The execution of long-range drone attacks is being co-ordinated by covert Ukrainian intelligence services, but the BBC has been privy to some of the details from other sources.

Dozens of drones can be launched in a single mission, with up to 60 drones being launched against a single target.

The attacks are mainly carried out at night, and most of them are shot down. Only about 10 percent reach their targets. Some drones are shot down en route by friendly fire from Ukraine’s own air defense forces.

Ukraine has had to come up with ways to counter Russian electronic jamming. Terminal Autonomy’s Scythe drone uses visual positioning and artificial intelligence to navigate its course and scan the terrain, without a pilot.

Palantir’s software may already be mapping out the optimal routes. Serra-Martins says the key to overwhelming and wearing down Russian air defenses is to have large numbers of drones. Just as important is making them cheaper than the missiles that would try to shoot them down and the targets they are trying to hit.

Professor Justin Bronk, from the Royal Institute for Integrated Security Studies, said Ukrainian long-range drone attacks pose a dilemma for Moscow: Russia has many air defences, but they can’t protect against them all.

Prof Bronk said Ukraine’s long-range attacks showed ordinary Russians “that the state is unable to fully protect them and that Russia is vulnerable”.

The Ukrainian drone was spotted more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away inside Russia and was shot down over Moscow.

But the focus has been on military installations: the map below shows just a few of the 12 targets that have been attacked in the past few months, including five Russian airbases.

Professor Justin Bronk says targeting Russian airbases is so far the only effective way Ukraine can counter Russian glide bombs.

This has forced Russia to move its aircraft to more distant bases and reduce the frequency of attacks. Satellite imagery shows a Ukrainian drone destroying a hangar at the Malinovka airbase.

Ukraine apparently believes it could do much more with the help of Western-made long-range weapons, but so far its allies have rejected Kiev’s requests.

Concerns remain, especially in Washington and Berlin, that the situation in Ukraine could draw the West further into the conflict, but that has not stopped Western companies and financial institutions from supporting Ukraine.

Ukraine is convinced that taking the war to Russia is the key to winning it and remains heavily dependent on its own efforts.

Francisco Serra-Martins also believes that Western manufacturers remain “woefully ill-prepared for an intense war” and are producing far fewer long-range weapons at much higher costs. He says what Ukraine really needs now is “a lot of good enough systems.”

The BBC spoke to a Ukrainian company that is already developing a new cruise missile that is at least 10 times cheaper than the British-made Storm Shadow missile.

Despite Western concerns, Ukraine plans to step up attacks on Russia. “What we see now is nothing compared to what we will see by the end of the year,” Serra Martins said.