Battle for drone supremacy in struggle for control of Donbas region

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow in air power at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said that Ukrainian forces would use Bayraktars sparingly because they were more vulnerable to better Russian air defences in eastern Ukraine. He said that a key factor in the next phase of the war was whether Russia could continue the supply of Orlan-10s at a faster rate than they were being shot down. “If you have a cheap commercially available drone like a quadcopter or a multicopter with a camera feed, then your otherwise fairly imprecise artillery or mortar fire can be quickly corrected on to a target within two or three rounds,” he said. “It’s a very cheap way of massively increasing the effectiveness of indirect fire.”