Explainer | How civilian drones are being used in Russia-Ukraine war
India Today
Amid the war, civilian drones are being used by both Russia and Ukraine for patrolling and surveillance.
On March 25, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence created a Facebook post, asking its citizens to use commercial drones and participate in a mass patrolling programme to conduct reconnaissance of army movement from the Russian side.
The post read: “Do you have a drone? Put it to use for the experienced pilots! Do you know how to operate a drone? Join the joint patrolling with units 112 separate brigades of the city of Kyiv! Kyiv is our home, defending it is a common task. #StopRussia You and your drone need Kyiv in this fierce moment!”
Even if people aren’t particularly skilled at flying their own drones, they’re still being urged to bring them in so that expert drone operators can utilise them for surveillance during this critical period.
The Facebook post has made Ukraine’s trained drone pilots participate in the reconnaissance programme and those who are not as experienced have volunteered to lend their drones to the drone brigades to carry out the same.
Most of the high-performing drones today in the commercial market belong to DJI, which stands for Da-Jiang Innovations, a Chinese technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, with manufacturing facilities across the world. DJI is one of the top manufacturers of civilian drones which are extensively used for drone photography, videography, drone flying, sports, etc, and are now being used as a tool to spot army troop movements on both sides of the border.
In some cases, we have also seen drones in Ukraine being used to drop Molotov cocktails. A Molotov cocktail is an incendiary weapon typically thrown by hand, consisting of a glass bottle filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse. In use, the fuse attached to the bottle is lit and the bottle is thrown, shattering on impact as explosives against incoming Russian troops.
The small flying drone was developed by the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces and appears to have four blades. Its centre console has a spot to hold the Molotov cocktail horizontally before it is remotely deployed.
