On Monday evening, a series of explosions took place near the city of Dzhankoi in occupied Crimea. According to the Ukrainian military, these explosions represent an attack on a supply of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles that were being transported by rail. If this is accurate, then Dzhankoi was certainly a good place to strike.
South Ukraine. Open image in another tab for a larger view.
Not only is the city at crossroads of major highways, as seen on this map, it’s also a railway hub, with a large switching yard and train sheds for directing materials in all directions. Even if the rail bridge at Kersh is still largely out of operation, shortly after they get across that bridge Russia certainly moves much of the material coming in from truck to rail. And when they do, everything they’re directing to Kherson or Zaporizhzhia Oblast comes through Dzhankoi.
Russia certainly felt safe in doing this, because at 150 kilometers from the nearest Ukrainian-held position, Dzhankoi was theoretically “safe.” Except this is just one of several locations that have recently been hit. Other explosions have struck the area around Mariupol, and even a Russian base on the other side of the Sea of Azov. That’s led to speculation about Ukraine getting longer-range missiles from the U.S., or developing long-range missiles of its own.
But the answer to the explosions at Dzhankoi and elsewhere is likely the same: drones.
Russia is claiming that all drones sent to Dzhankoi were shot down. You can see how accurate that statement is in the video below.
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Open that video full screen. Pause at about the four-second mark: You can actually see what appears to be a drone diving toward a target just above one of the buildings.
Not only is Dzhankoi a rail hub, it has reportedly become one of Russia’s largest military bases in occupied Crimea. Some of the forces there were relocated from Kherson Oblast after Russia was forced to leave the area west of the Dnipro River. Some of the strikes appear to have been directed at the military airbase in this location.
Hours later, more strikes are being reported both at Dzhankoi and at other locations in Crimea. It seems like Ukraine is engaged in a more extensive operation, perhaps designed to take down Russian missiles before they can be launched in another wave against civilian targets. Weirdly enough, there is also gunfire on the ground at Dzhankoi and a power outage in the city. No idea what’s behind all that.
It’s been four months now since the first installment of the Field Guide to Drones of Ukraine, but it seems like even longer because so much of what was in that installment is now badly out of date. It doesn’t cover the Russian Lancet, which has become one of the most used tactical weapons against Ukraine. It doesn’t even hit the Iranian HESA Shahed 136, which has become one of Russia’s most used weapons in striking Ukrainian infrastructure. It doesn’t even get to the whole panoply of hex- and quadcopter drones now serving both sides in an extraordinary number of roles.
A single Kalibr cruise missile sells for about $6.5 million on the international arms market. It’s a complex machine, with both multiple solid rocket booster stages and a turbojet engine for cruising at speed. It’s 8 meters long. It weighs around a ton.
Odds are that a whole group of those missiles were taken out last night by one or more devices that were a fraction of the Kalibr’s speed, a fraction of its mass, a fraction of its size, and a tiny fraction of its cost.
How cheap may they have been? Before I answer, I want you to watch this video. Even if you think you have no interest in drones for package delivery, even if you find the whole idea obnoxious, watch it. This is a fascinating and uplifting story about just how amazing drones can be when they’re being used for something other than warfare.
It’s not just that the use of drones here is innovative and lifesaving. It’s that the whole system was rapidly built up by people with little past experience beyond using consumer drones. They reengineered everything, tested it all, refined it, and developed a system that is reliably delivering medical supplies thousands of times a day, with drones coming and going every 90 seconds at two different launch facilities. If you want to know more, visit Zipline’s page and you can get details, including watching the drones in transit.
If you look closely, you’ll see that the gliding drones in this video were built from polystyrene shells. It’s a good choice—light and strong enough to do the job. Only the wings are built from a more rigid plastic. Zipline doesn’t give a price for individual drones, but estimates put them between $1,000 and $3,000 each, depending on how you value the interchangeable components. That’s astoundingly cheap for something that can deliver lifesaving packages precisely where they’re needed at a range up to 240 km.
But wait. When it comes to getting something delivered to the exact spot, we can go cheaper. Much cheaper. Take a look at the Corvo Precision Payload Delivery System (PPDS) from Australian company Sypaq.
The Corvo was developed for the Australian military under a contract to develop systems that could bring military or medical supplies to a precise location near the front line. The total cost of that contract was around $11 million. However, the portion of that devoted to the development and manufacturing of this drone was $1 million. The whole program cost a fraction of the cost of a single Kalibr missile. One article refers to them as “pizza box drones,” another as “killer origami.”
This is a purposefully disposable, waxed cardboard and rubber bands drone that can carry supplies, a camera, or a bomb. Sypaq is clearly aware it’s being used to do all three, and they’re sending 100 of them each month to Ukraine as flat-packs that can be assembled in the field.
Was it the Corvo that hit Dzhankoi on Monday night? Unlikely. The specs on the system give it a range of 120 km, either under the control of an operator or going to a precise GPS location. They are also unlikely to carry sufficient payload to match the explosion seen in the video from that first video. It can reportedly carry up to 5 kilograms, but maxing out the load cuts the range in half.
Over the course of the last year in Ukraine, it has become intensely obvious that low-cost drones meant for other purposes can become incredibly potent weapons. You don’t need some jet-powered military drone to take out enemy systems worth millions. You can do it with a consumer drone and a a kid with some experience in FPV racing. You can even do it with cardboard and rubber bands.
Over the last week, it’s not just Russian tanks that have been experiencing “rapid unplanned disassembly” at a record pace. Russian artillery has also come under intense directed fire. Over the last week, Russia has been losing about eight artillery systems a day. That’s about four times the daily average over the previous year. A big part of that is coming from systems that were either taken out directly by drones, or by counterbattery fire directed by observation drones.
Drones have been important since the invasion began. That importance is still growing. Every military in the world has to be rethinking how these devices fit into their overall strategy. And every law enforcement agency in the world had better be thinking about where this technology goes next.
If you worried the Switchblade drones the U.S. was sending to Ukraine were just gathering dust somewhere, that’s not the case.
Okay, let’s do one more ...
A quick run-through of events on the front. Refer to maps from Saturday if you want to see these locations in context.
- Kupyansk: What at first appears to be the bad news is that Ukraine has reportedly moved out of the towns north of Kupyansk without a fight, relocating those forces to the west bank of the Oskil River. However, the actual news is that Russian forces in the area, which were never that great to begin with, have reportedly been so depleted by precision artillery strikes that most of the towns that are now theoretically in the area of Russian occupation are actually not occupied. The military doesn’t believe there is currently any risk to Kupyansk or to Ukraine’s control of the highway to the east.
- Svatove: Fighting in the area currently appears limited to the back and forth between Novoselivske and neighboring Kuzemivka. Nothing really seems to be changing.
- Kreminna: Russia reportedly massed forces just north of Dibrova on Sunday and Monday and achieved a momentary breakthrough. However, that attack has now been reportedly stopped. The whole movement is small enough that it’s hard to detect without taking the map to microscopic levels. Fighting is going on in the forest south of the city again, with Russia apparently sending forces both south from Kreminna and west from Shypylivka. No word on the outcome of these fights. North of the city, there is fighting near Chervonopopivka, so apparently Ukraine is still there even though I gave this area back to Russia on my maps last week. Oops.
- Bakhmut: The only real movement appears to be in the area west of Dubovo-Vasylivka. If you look on the Saturday map, there’s a small patch of woods just west of what had been disputed area. Russia now appears to have forces among those trees.
- Donetsk: Russia has made small advances north of Avdiivka near Krasnohorivka. However, Kamianka, which had been under Russian control, does not appear to be disputed. (Both of these towns are off the edge of the Saturday map. Sorry about that.)
- Velyka: Ukraine reportedly moved south from Vuhledar and actually took control of an area where Russia has been launching all those attacks. Whether it’s the start of a counteroffensive or just a slight shift in positions, I don’t know.
- Hulyaipole: I’ve got nothing.
- Orikhiv: Ukraine reportedly has run several small units south of the city, where they’ve suffered losses and been repulsed. These appear similar to the small-scale attack toward Polohy last week. What’s going on with these, I can’t say. They look similar to the many “reconnaissance in force” actions undertaken by Russia, but you’d certainly like to think that Ukraine has good enough intelligence to not trade blood for information on Russian positions.