Ukrainian drone tactics make their way to Kursk region, Russian military bloggers suggest

Kyiv has said little about its rapid entry into Russia's Kursk region, only confirming involvement on Saturday.

It seemingly caught Moscow by surprise: In just days, Ukrainian forces have gained control of what army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has claimed to total 1,000 square kilometres of Russian soil, as of Monday.

How did it happen? While Kyiv has not elaborated, across the border in Russia, military commentators have been rumbling that Ukrainian forces skilfully used drones and jammers to limit Russia's defences and break into Kursk.

Some outside observers say this view seems to make sense, while cautioning that those same commentators may only be able to see a slice of the wider picture.

"It does seem plausible," said Samuel Bendett, an adviser with the Russia Studies program at CNA, a safety and security think-tank in Washington, D.C.

Drones have become increasingly critical to both Russia and Ukraine across nearly 30 months of all-out war in Ukraine. They are used everywhere — from the trenches of the front line, to the skies above interior areas of the two countries.

Ukraine, which has created a drone warfare-focused branch of its military, has used drones to destroy Russian tanks, hit warplanes and other military targets, in addition to using longer-range drone models to strike oil and gas facilities far beyond the border.

And it's likewise felt the sting of Russian drones that have killed Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike, and have damaged infrastructure including power plants.

For Ukraine, relying on technologies like drones has been a way for it to punch above its weight in its fight with Russia.

"We have everything to win the war against the Russian Federation. Everything to replace a person in the trench, at sea, in the air and underwater," said Ivan Havryliuk, a deputy defence minister, in remarks reported by ABC News earlier this year.

Along the front line, troops from both sides are constrained by the hovering threat of the drones above. Small, first-person view (FPV) drones are routinely used to hunt individual soldiers.

Yet these same obstacles did not stop Ukraine from advancing into Kursk, raising the question of how. 

A handful of published reports — some citing the observations of Russian war bloggers — suggests that Ukraine used drones and signal-jamming devices to down Russian surveillance capabilities and then attack the ground ahead, as Ukraine's own troops made their advance. 

Bendett said it's not a surprise that Ukraine would be using such approaches. He, along with others, saw other factors beyond drones as being key to Kyiv's early success in Kursk, such as operational secrecy and the element of surprise. However, he said, the technology is something that Ukraine has been developing, testing and ultimately competing with Russia on.